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1512190cookie-checkNew York Times Defends Editor Sarah Jeong For Her Racist Tweets
Angry Assault
2018/08

New York Times Defends Editor Sarah Jeong For Her Racist Tweets

OAG Staff

The New York Times recently hired in Sarah Jeong from The Verge to be a part of their editorial board. There was a lot of push back from average people who took a look at Jeong’s Twitter feed, which was filled to the brim with anti-white sentiments and racist comments directed toward white men. After Jeong began trending on Twitter for her racism, The New York Times issued a statement defending Jeong and her racist tweets.

The New York Times issued the statement on August 2nd, 2018 via Twitter.

If you’re unable to read the tweet, the statement reads…

“We hired Sarah Jeong because of the exceptional work she has done covering the internet and technology at a range of respected publications.

 

“Her journalism and the fact that she is a young Asian woman have made her a subject of frequent online harassment. For a period of time she responded to that harassment by imitating the rhetoric of her harassers. She sees now that this approach only served to feed the vitriol that we too often see on social media. She regrets it, and The Times does not condone it.

 

“We had candid conversations with Sarah as part of our thorough vetting process, which included a review of her social media history. She understands that this type of rhetoric is not acceptable at The Times and we are confident that she will be an important voice for the editorial board moving forward.”

The tweets that Jeong made, many of which are still available for viewing, aren’t actually directed at anyone in particular so there’s no contextual framing that the tweets were ever meant as some sort of ironic counter-troll. In fact, the tweets were all generalized toward white men.

In one particular case, she takes aim at the Anthony Douglas Elonis case involving his rap lyrics that were argued as being threatening and harassing. On December 31st, 2014 Jeong wrote across a number of tweets…

“I kind of want to go back and write up Elonis again, but beginning from the thesis “white men are fucking bullshit” Seriously, this guy is such bullshit. he’s all the way up in front of SCOTUS and people are calling this the “are rap lyrics threats” case[.] [H]is “rap lyrics” are like all derived from eminem

 

“BECAUSE OF COURSE

 

“[O]ne of the worst facebook posts he got convicted on isn’t actually a “rap,” it’s just the words to a whitest kids u know sketch (yes, seriously). it’s a sketch about killing the president, but with “the president” swapped out for “my wife” meanwhile there have been a number of black men convicted using their (actual, real, set-to-music) rap lyrics as evidence see, for example, this particularly outrageous case against a rapper who *didn’t even do anything*: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/dec/03/tiny-doo-rapper-facing-life-for-making-album

 

“[H]e literally got charged because he 1) rapped about doing crimes, 2) is a gang member. ergo conspiracy! [B]ut he’s not in front of the supreme court.

 

“[T]he “rap” case in front of the supreme court is this shitty white ex-husband who never expressed interest in rap until his wife left[.] [H]e wrote facebook posts like:
“I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.” and “Hurry up and die, bitch, so I can bust this nut all over your corpse from atop your shallow grave.”

 

“[B]ut that’s not what got him in trouble. he was only arrested and charged after some FBI agents came to question him. [H]e sent them away and then the next thing this idiot does is write a facebook post about how he’s going to kill the FBI agents”

Jeong rounds out the rant with the following tweets.

Also, Jeong’s tweets taking aim at whites on December 23rd, 2014 wasn’t at all targeted at any particular trolls, nor did she tag any trolls in the feeds, they were front-facing the public and are still available for perusal, as evident with the thread here denigrating white genetics.

There was also a rather vitriolic tweet from November 23rd, 2014 that many called out for being extremely racist. Many criticized the tweet below stating that Jeong would have been fired had “white” been replaced with “black” or “Jewish”.

Jeong has a series of other tweets as well, all targeting whites, all themed around being racist.

A number of people pointed out to The New York Times that the tweets were unacceptable.

Even Asians came out to publicly condemn Jeong’s tweets, telling The New York Times that they were supporting a racist.

However, the opposition Jeong’s racism was oftentimes drowned out on Twitter by the social media platform’s preferred users, namely those with pronouns in their profiles and more anti-white sentiment to spread, like comedian Avery Edison…

This is common among many of Twitter’s prominent and less prominent users on the Left, including developers, authors, journalists, and activists.

So far the protest of Sarah Jeong’s hiring at The New York Times hasn’t had much of an effect on the media outlet, as evident with the statement made by The New York Times. To no one’s surprise The Verge also ran to Jeong’s defense, claiming that criticism of her hiring is…

“[…] is dishonest and outrageous. The trolls engaged in this campaign are using the same tactics that exploded during Gamergate, and they have been employed in recent years by even broader audiences amid a rise in hostility toward journalists. From cries about “ethics in journalism” to “fake news,” journalists have been increasingly targeted by people acting in bad faith who do not care about the work they do, the challenges they face, or the actual context of their statements.”

Actually… the cries of “ethics in journalism” was met with updated ethics policies from a number of sites, including The Verge updating their own ethics policy after a targeted campaign by #GamerGate.

Also, “fake news” is very real… as recently revealed when a number of sites engaged in creating a fake narrative about the firing of former Guild Wars 2 writer, Jessica price. That’s just one of a near innumerable amount of examples out there.

Anyway, some people have responded by canceling their subscription to the outlet, but it will likely take a lot of subscription cancellations to have an impact on the organization’s decision to keep Jeong on board.

(Thanks for the news tip Divine Providence)

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