The radicals at the New York Times were recently triggered by a poll posted on the Times’ private Facebook page over the appropriate use of the n-word. This poll was in reaction to a Times reporter who was ousted after admitting to using the n-word when asking a question of someone who was asking about it.
First, here’s the backstory on how Donald McNeil used this n-word that led to him getting ousted, in case you missed our post earlier this month:
“On a 2019 New York Times trip for Peru for high school students, I was asked at 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,” he explained.
“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,” he continued.
“I should not have done that,” McNeil wrote.
“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 judgement. For that I apologize,” he continued.
He wasn’t calling someone the n-word or using it in a derogatory manner. He was asked about the slur and then used it in his question to find out more about how the person asking had used it. What’s the big freaking deal?
In any event, a Times’ Facebook page admin posted a poll to find out what insiders thought should be the appropriate use of the word:
NY POST – Racial tensions continue to simmer inside the New York Times, with some current and former staffers outraged anew over a recent Facebook poll seeking to define an “appropriate” use of the N-word, The Post has learned.
The poll — created by Matt Wald, a retired Times energy reporter who administers a private Facebook group for current and former Times staffers — marks the latest fallout from the controversial ouster of health reporter Donald McNeil over his use of the epithet during an education trip to Peru in 2019.
“In light of the continuing disagreement about the n-word (‘use’ is off the table, but some members of the group object to seeing it on the screen even in the context of discussing the word itself) we are seeing everyone’s opinion,” Wald wrote recently in introducing the poll, according to a screenshot obtained by The Post.
The poll asked that members choose one of three responses or add their own, according to screenshots. The first option was “There is no appropriate reason to use the word in this FB discussion group.” The second option was “The word should never be used in referring to a person, but if the word itself is the subject of discussion, it may be used.”
A final alternative was: “Never used by a White man or woman. Ever.”
The poll initially got a healthy response, with the first option getting 32 votes, the second getting 31 and the third option getting just four votes. But members of the group soon began blasting it as “hurtful” and “misguided,” according to screenshots of the discussion provided to The Post.
I’m surprised the last option only got 4 votes. I would have thought it would have been at the top of the list.
The Facebook poll didn’t just get the normal selection responses, but angry responses as well:
“The poll was extremely hurtful and unnecessary,” wrote Liz Robbins, a former metro reporter who teaches at Columbia Journalism School.
David Gonzalez, a visual reporter on the metro desk, chimed in with, “There has been a lot that has been hurtful and unnecessary.”
Anne Barnard, a climate and environment reporter and past Beirut bureau chief, added. “The idea that a majority vote is even remotely a way to address this is…extremely misguided. It implies a white person’s view should weigh as heavily as a black person’s on an issue that has far greater impact on black colleagues.”
She continued: “… adjectives fail me that so many white colleagues (many are former colleagues) continue to chatter about this on here, even now, as a thing to debate,” Barnard continued. “As if even now, their colleagues’ reality is invisible or irrelevant, along with their explicit pleas to stop inflicting pain on this point.”
“I vote to not refer to Hispanics as ‘spics,’” added Frenchie Robles, a national and foreign correspondent based in Florida.
Amazing. You can’t even do a poll to find a consensus on a subject like this without these liberal clowns getting all triggered, with some proclaiming that only black people can have an opinion on this. It’s absurd.
It wouldn’t shock me at all of this Facebook administration lost his privileges for simply asking a question. In fact I almost expect it.