Alexi McCammond, the would-be editor of Teen Vogue, made two terrible mistakes.
The first was writing some racist and homophobic tweets when she was a teenager. Unfortunately, until time travel is perfected, there is nothing she can do about that in 2021.
The second mistake, and the one that really cost her the job, was apologizing.
Robby Soave, in Reason, notes that McCammond’s apology wasn’t enough to save her job:
Conde Nest, the media company that owns Teen Vogue, was aware of the tweets when it hired McCammond, who had already apologized for them. The bosses evidently did not expect such furor from Teen Vogue staff—though that's rather shortsighted on their part, given the large number of similar uprisings at progressive media workspaces. Even so, the perception that anti-Asian hate crimes are rising—including the possibility that the Georgia massage parlor murders were motivated by anti-Asian bias—meant it was bad timing for an incoming editor to be involved in an even tangentially related controversy.
We should be clear about a couple things. First, McCammond apologized. She apologized profusely, and she apologized repeatedly. And she did not just apologize this week, when her job was in jeopardy. She apologized back in 2019.
Second, the tweets in question are indeed offensive: a mix of anti-Asian stereotypes, and even some homophobia. Butthey were written when she was 17. She should not have said those things, and she is right to be sorry about it. But I doubt you could find a teenager on the planet who has never uttered something mean-spirited. We are beginning to hold people to unattainable standards. Kids are not perfect, and they make mistakes all the time. The point is to learn from them, apologize when necessary, and grow past them. Lots of people said offensive things in their adolescence; it's just that in this case, thanks to Twitter, there is a record of her comments.
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It wasn't enough. It never will be. The new enforcers of morality—the pitchfork-wielding employees of progressive media companies and their swarms of social-media allies—have decided that no one may dwell in their midst unless they were born without sin. This poisonous approach will, if anything, make people more reticent to apologize or acknowledge wrongdoing. Instead they'll shrug and say, "What's the point?"
The thing is, I’d go even further than Soave and say that McCammond’s groveling apologies were what sealed her fate. When the online mob (and, increasingly, the newsroom Slack channel mob) comes for you, they are looking for signs of weakness. And apologizing to people fundamentally disposed against accepting one is more blood in the water.
They are bullies. Bullies who have experienced real pain, perhaps, but still bullies.
Most of the people I follow on social media have been sympathetic to McCammond, and even some who have downplayed “cancel culture” - or even denied its very existence until now - seem to be waking up. But there is no shortage of self-righteous (and invariably white) people insisting that they never said anything offensive by 2021 standards when they were kids, and that their own children certainly aren’t saying anything wrong on social media now.
Uh huh.
An old Cold War joke: an American scientists and a Russian scientist meet at a conference. The American asks his Soviet counterpart how their moon-landing program is coming along, and the Russian promptly responds, “but you lynch black people.”
Such whataboutism is an old rhetorical trick when anti-Western dictatorships are confronted about their human rights abuses or other failings, and the Chinese Communist Party is still playing the game:
Thursday’s gathering in Anchorage began with a public portion featuring some pointed verbal jousting by both sides.
Blinken told Chinese officials that the U.S. would continue to speak out about Beijing’s crackdowns in Hong Kong and on Uighur Muslims, along with other points of contentions. Despite China’s insistence that these are internal matters, they threaten the rules-based international order, Blinken said, making them fair game for American comment and action.
Yang shot back that the United States is an international bully and that it has its own poor human rights record, including mistreating Black Americans. Wang said the Chinese people were “outraged” by the U.S. decision earlier this week to impose a series of sanctions on Chinese officials said to be involved in the crackdown on Hong Kong.
Usually these opening remarks take just a few minutes, but the U.S. side decided to respond to the Chinese allegations, and then the Chinese officials took a second opportunity to lay out their grievances, dragging out the public portion.
A senior Biden administration official afterward accused the Chinese side of “grandstanding,” while the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that upon reaching Anchorage, its diplomats’ “hearts were chilled by the biting cold as well as the reception by their American host.”
Right-wing Twitter is attacking Biden’s team for its tepid response (because, as we know, the last Republican President never missed an opportunity to speak up for American democracy) but the President is standing by his people:
President Biden on Friday said he’s “proud” of Secretary of State Tony Blinken after the top diplomat sat through an anti-American tirade from Chinese officials at a summit in Alaska.
“I’m very proud of the secretary of state,” Biden told reporters on the White House lawn after the unexpected lashing Thursday from Communist diplomats who mocked Biden’s claim to be operating from a “position of strength” to Blinken’s face on US soil.
The shocking attack on the United States from China contrasted with familiar US criticism of China, including on human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi lectured Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on what he said was US hypocrisy.
“The United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength,” Yang said through a translator at the summit in Anchorage.
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Sullivan twice attempted to promote what he called the “secret sauce” of US democracy, including an ability to “look hard at its own shortcomings.”
“The other secret sauce of America is that our people are a problem-solving people, and we believe we solve problems best when we work together with allies and partners around the world,” Sullivan said.
I think Sullivan was on to something. It’s easy to get ticked off when the government of China (or its Western apologists) attack Western countries for their own human rights issues, but they aren’t wrong per se. This past year in particular has brought a lot of American tensions, especially regarding racial issues, to the surface.
These tensions have been discussed, debated, argued and examined incessantly in Western news outlets, and on social media. Americans, Britons and Canadians have even been re-examining the legacies of their most foundational historical figures. I am often very critical of far-left activism in this newsletter, but I wouldn’t want to live in a society where it isn’t allowed.
Meanwhile, this guy’s portrait will not be coming down from Tiananmen Square any time soon, and woe betide any Chinese citizen who suggests that the guy responsible for some of the worst man-made disasters in human history may not deserve his place of honour.
On the surface, this looks like strength. It might explain why so many extreme right-wingers are attracted to Vladmir Putin as an avatar of civilizational confidence.
But it isn’t confidence. It is fear. Fear that these societies and institutions are not strong enough to withstand criticism and debate from their own people.
In earthquake zones, buildings are often constructed so that they will sway with the movement of the earth to keep from crumbling. That’s kind of how liberal democracy works. It is built to take a punch and keep going.
Putin and Xi, by contrast, drill down harder whenever there are signs of unrest, to make doubly sure the structure won’t move no matter how hard the ground is shaking. And, ultimately, that will be their downfall.
Biden’s people should have thanked the CCP delegation for their comments, admitted that America is still working on its shortcomings, and said that they look forward to speaking with activists looking to fix problems with Chinese society. And then asked for a map of their prisons and graveyards.
YouTuber and columnist J.J. McCullough writes in The Washington Post about the strange phenomenon of Canadians who seem more interesting in American politics than whatever is happening in their own country:
A sarcastic tweet from user “Gapeway Pundit” delighted many in the American center-left the other day. “I feel like Biden has done absolutely nothing for me,” Gapeway wrote. “Sure he’s reversed the Muslim ban but I’m not Muslim. And the trans military ban, but i’m not trans. He banned federal use of private prisons, but I’m not a prisoner. His COVID bill will give Americans $1,400, but I’m Canadian.”
The joke — and the positive reaction to it — nicely encapsulates a certain exhaustion I’ve noticed among moderate American progressives recently. President Biden remains broadly popular with most voters, yet still faces persistent criticism from an online far-left that insists he’s a disaster. It’s a group largely composed of bitter Bernie Sanders partisans — and apparently a disproportionate number of Canadians, too. Indeed, it’s become something of a running joke among centrist Democrats on social media that before taking the words of some stridently leftist Biden critic seriously, always check their profile location tag.
While I’m hesitant to provoke the wrath of the “Dirtbag Left” by naming and shaming anyone in particular, it’s not much of a secret that several of America’s prominent far-left tweeters, columnists, podcasters and YouTube personalities also happen to be Canadians based in Canada. They’re not Canadian political commentators who occasionally talk about American affairs — as all Canadian commentators do — but rather Canadians who are choosing to embed themselves deeply in America’s domestic political debate and function as outright activists for one very particular side.
Canadian commentators obsessively writing about American issues? I can’t imagine what kind of pathetic loser would do that.
Damian you have a really great sense of humor. Just want to say.