There have been many articles written in the last two weeks concerning a Korean American woman hired to write about technology for the New York Times editorial page. The problem with the hire for people who can read, and can get the obvious meaning of what is on the page, concerns many tweets (the author averages 31 a day) that are obviously extremely bigoted and hateful towards men, white men, police, and (surprise, surprise) Trump  (did you know he is actually Hitler?).

Various apologists have come forth to excuse the author, Ms. Sarah Jeong, because after all she is a woman of color, and thereby marginalized, and without power. And if you did not know it already, without power, you can’t be a bigot.

(via Sarahjeong.net)

As this story has erupted, there is the issue of whether elite schools, like Harvard, have maximum quotas on Asians (as they used to with Jews), in order to achieve minimum quotas for blacks, Hispanics (sorry about that, I mean Latinx people), and Native Americans. Maybe the group solidarity against white men Ms. Jeong covets has some fissures. 

Another excuse offered for the new editor is “context.” She claims she was harassed online, and was trolling her trolls. I don’t know if this is truthful or not, but none of her tweets is part of a stream showing who she might be responding to. The New York Times toady Bret Stephens says context matters, since he has read her columns and when she sticks to the topic, she writes well. And adds Stephens, he also criticized the Atlantic for firing Kevin Williamson over a few comments from years back, ignoring his body of work. So he applauds his new employer for sticking with its hire of Jeong because overall, her good writing matters more than her bigotry and racism.  

However, in his latest column, Stephens never mentions the person the Times fired for the job for which they hired Jeong. She was fired for a few comments in past articles, and it seems the Times was not interested in context in her case, or considered the body of her work. You see, that author, Quinn Norton,  is also a woman, but not an Asian woman, hence not as marginalized. Her firable offense included two comments that pale in comparison to Jeong’s best of the best-  that all white men should die or disappear.

In other words, Stephens, anxious to suck up to his new employers, fails to even acknowledge that his paper acted completely differently in one case from another, and treated more leniently the writer who was the far more bigoted offender.  It depends I guess on who you slander and hate. But in any case, Stephens once again demonstrates his complete attachment to virtue signaling and applauding his own superiority and nobility.

Then there is the New Yorker’s Jelani Cobb, one of the holy of holies among progressives. . Check out this priceless summary paragraph. then tell me what this sentence means:

White men in this country have been, largely if not universally, exempt from the default demand that we look askance at their claims to humanity.

Jeong’s comments can also be seen as expressions—if flawed ones—of the frustration common to people who deal with chronic unfairness. People in these communities might well voice such sentiments in their homes, or among associates who share a common burden, but wisely avoid doing so on social media. Her comments were reckless, inflammatory, potentially hurtful. But all things are not equal. White men in this country have been, largely if not universally, exempt from the default demand that we look askance at their claims to humanity. Filter past the hypertensive indignation and a thing becomes clear: the idea of reverse racism serves as a blunt instrument to facilitate the actual kind."

Yes, the problem is Jeong’s critics, not the author, who is dealing with “chronic unfairness.” What?