NYT reporter Donald McNeil Jr ousted after using n-word with students | Hacker News Reader

NYT reporter Donald McNeil Jr ousted after using n-word with students

thewrap.com

17 pointsneartheplain13 comments

>”I was asked at a dinner by a student whether I thought a classmate of hers should have been suspended for a video she had made as a 12-year-old in which she used a racial slur. To understand what was in the video, I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself,” McNeil said in his note to the staff. “I should not have done that. Originally, I thought the context in which I used this ugly word could be defended. I now realize that it cannot. It is deeply offensive and hurtful. The fact that I even thought I could defend it itself showed extraordinarily bad judgment. For that I apologize.”

Is this now the new normal? This kind of arbitrary and capricious punishment? For this?

It wasn't just singular use of the word. From earlier reporting: "the Daily Beast reported that students who attended the trip, as well as their parents, had complained that McNeil used the “n-word,” said that white supremacy did not exist and made other disrespectful comments about Black teenagers when he led the student trip to Peru."

Have we just decided that there's no such thing as a path to redemption now?

While people on the left spend their energy taking down people who are most likely their allies for the smallest missteps instead of trying to work with them to correct things, people on the right can offer "apologies" and continue on because their base doesn't care about such transgression [0].

Who do you think comes out on top at the end if we continue down this path?

[0] https://www.cnn.com/videos/entertainment/2021/02/04/morgan-w...

Governor Northam of Virginia was recently criticized for having an old year book photo where he either was in blackface or wearing a KKK hood. The photo was from the first year his medical school desegregated and many white students were protesting the inclusion of a single black student. Northam was 28 at the time but refers to it as a youthful indiscretion. He has given no details as to how the photo came to be, or how he has grown past his youth as a racist activist.

He is a Democrat.

Not everyone on the left is taken down because of small “missteps”. For the most part people give a quick non-apology, mutter that their actions were “in a different time”, and completely fail to correct anything.

Three more high ranking VA democrats at this time are embroiled in similar scandals.

Having to live in a society where some people can get away with the worst things, creates an frustration that builds and builds. This leads to a backlash against anyone who isn’t politically connected even if their “crime” is a minor one. It’s a way to draw a line in the sand when you can, after living for decades in utter helplessness.

If we were a fair society, Northam would be forced to give a true accounting of his life, and step down. This reporter on the other hand, would not be fired.

I’m not sure if this is a disagreement, but I don’t think redemption has anything to do with it. It’s about power and persecution. A lot of cancel culture, in fact I would say all of it, it’s about exerting power and making someone else do something. So long as a group is rewarded for their behavior (outrage, condemnation, demands for cancellation) it will continue.

> “I was asked at a dinner by a student whether I thought a classmate of hers should have been suspended for a video she had made as a 12-year-old in which she used a racial slur. To understand what was in the video, I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself,”

Really...fired for that? Ridiculous. It's as if people can't understand context, intent and probably intonation.

Why don't they start demanding for researchers who study uses of insults to be fired because "racial slurs can't be used anywhere regardless of context"? That the problem with absolutes, if you were to enforce them " literally every single time" a lot would go wrong and certain things would become impossible.

What a joke that paper is

Flagged because HN is not the right place for this, but Sarah Jeong is still employed by the New York Times.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/03/sarah-jeo...

Compared to the news of Andy Mills’ resignation from the Times which received 100+ upvotes and remains near the HN front page, this news seems more likely to materially affect tech workers. I’ve already seen coworkers refer to major papers’ style guides and editorial practices when debating how sensitive topics may be discussed, both internally and externally (Do we capitalize the “b” in Black? How about the “w” in White? etc). The decision by Times leadership that context and intent no longer matter when uttering bad words, and indeed that termination is an industry-accepted response to otherwise benign and well-intended utterances, may have broad implications for knowledge workers.

“We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent.” – Baquet and Kahn

To me, this is the most newsworthy bit. That and the fact that he was the Times’ (and perhaps the nation’s) top COVID reporter, yet it still wasn’t enough to save his job when weighed against an inappropriate remark from 2019.

It’s obvious that racism has deeply scarred the US and it’s a damaged and defective country because of that in many ways. It’s so corrosive and trust has been completely eroded every which way. I understand that action mostly in that context and the good thing is that the harm of all of this (to the involved reporter) will definitely be minimal. He can trust on receiving tons of support and sympathy and he is in a privileged position where he certainly doesn’t have to worry about material concerns.

Still, I’m so happy to live in a country where this would be illegal.

Unless it’s an egregious and obvious breach of trust (the classic example being stealing from your employer or anything else that would also be a crime) employees have to be warned about any infractions (and this is an official process with a paper trail) and can only be fired on repeat offences that are similar in kind.

That, to me, seems like the obvious way to approach this problem and if you treat everyone the same you don’t get into complex discussions about what’s fair or not.

I wouldn't say "scarred", because it's an open wound. It's tempting to think that racism was defeated, first in the Civil War and then with Civil Rights -- that's certainly the story I was taught in school.

But that doesn't reflect what black people see every day. They see racist harassment on web sites every day -- I have already reported three on Quora today, and it's not even lunch time. The well-publicized murders of black people by police are just the tip of the iceberg -- it's followed by a massive justification from millions of people why this particular unarmed and innocent black person nonetheless deserved to die, reliably, every single time. That acts like terrorism, and every single black child is taught to be afraid of police because they have to be.

This isn't just a hangover of past racism. It's active and ongoing, and people who downplay the significance of it are perpetuating it. There's more to this story than a single chance racial slur, as reported elsewhere, including repeat offenses. But more to the point, it's more than just a word. In the US it's more than just hitting a scar. It's tearing at an open wound, and each time we make excuses for that, it continues.

The context:

“I was asked at a dinner by a student whether I thought a classmate of hers should have been suspended for a video she had made as a 12-year-old in which she used a racial slur. To understand what was in the video, I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself,” McNeil said in his note to the staff. “I should not have done that. Originally, I thought the context in which I used this ugly word could be defended. I now realize that it cannot. It is deeply offensive and hurtful. The fact that I even thought I could defend it itself showed extraordinarily bad judgment. For that I apologize.”

Can’t believe an entire career was ended over a moment requesting clarification.

So much for intent.

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