4 Aug, 2018 00:08

Can’t be racist against whites! Andrew Sullivan booed over criticising ‘racism’ at NY Times

Andrew Sullivan, a self-styled conservative writer who backed Barack Obama and same-sex-marriage, ran afoul of the social justice crowd for criticizing New York Times’ hiring of an Asian-American reporter who wrote racist tweets.

Sullivan’s article, published in the New York Magazine on Friday under the headline “When Racism Is Fit to Print,” points out that conservatives consider Sarah Jeong’s tweets racist, while the political left considers that “simply impossible… by virtue of being an Asian woman.”

Making it clear that he doesn’t want Jeong fired, Sullivan then says “we all live on campus now,” a society in which “we are all mere appendages of various groups of oppressors and oppressed, and in which the oppressed definitionally cannot be at fault.”

'How dare he!' thundered the representatives of what Sullivan called the “liberal media,” denouncing his column as “complete garbage,” his worldview “stupendously dishonest” and his entire opus “a long jam of reactionary bad columns.”

andrew sullivan’s newest column is complete garbage and i’m embarrassed to be even tangentially associated with it
— brian feldman (@bafeldman) August 3, 2018

Yes Andrew Sullivan’s worldview is stupendously dishonest, and his oeuvre is a long jam of reactionary bad columns. But one would think that with so much practice…he would be better at them?
— de bleck penta (@fivefifths) August 3, 2018

Others accused Sullivan of being “an ardent white supremacist & scientific racist,” an “undisguised white supremacist,” and “an incurious dull-minded mediocrity and an extremely sh*tty and slovenly writer.”

I wonder if anyone at NY Magazine knows how demoralizing it is to young writers to see Andrew Sullivan, an ardent white supremacist & scientific racist, attain the lifelong perch Sarah Jeong would be denied for 100% inoffensive tweets
— Dan O'Sullivan (@Bro_Pair) August 3, 2018

one of the things about andrew sullivan is that on top of being an undisguised white supremacist he's also just an incurious dull-minded mediocrity and an extremely shitty and slovenly writer
— Albert Burneko (@AlbertBurneko) August 3, 2018

One journalist brought up Sullivan’s sexuality, saying that the legalization of same-sex marriage “freed up gay dudes to be doctrinaire right-wingers again.”

one funny consequence of the resolution of the gay marriage question, which shaped so much of andrew sullivan's life in writing, is that it freed up gay dudes to be doctrinaire right-wingers again
— chris hooks (@cd_hooks) August 3, 2018

Then there were those who argued that reverse racism cannot exist, and that, as one former Hillary Clinton organizer put it in all caps, “YOU CANNOT BE RACIST AGAINST WHITE PEOPLE” - pretty much exactly what Sullivan described in his article as the political left’s position.

Andrew Sullivan’s piece is problematic in many ways. But the main point of foolishness isYOU CANNOT BE RACIST AGAINST WHITE PEOPLE. You can only be prejudice against a dominant race.Racism is about in-group vs. out-group power. In the American context whites are in-group.
— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) August 3, 2018

That Andrew Sullivan piece is stupid because reverse racism doesn’t exist, but it’s also stupid because he managed to slip in the “socialism only works in all white countries” anti-diversity argument. pic.twitter.com/9c3oEY50yo
— Jack Smith IV (@JackSmithIV) August 3, 2018

One journalist even suggested, presumably in jest, a GoFundMe so Sullivan will stop writing.

A GoFundMe so Andrew Sullivan will stop writing.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 3, 2018

A few voices rose up in Sullivan’s defense, however.

1. White supremacy is real, evil, and must be fought.2. Anti-white racism ALSO exists; historical white privilege does not change the meaning of "racism."3. In order to credibly call out 1, one must also consistently denounce 2 when one sees it.Andrew Sullivan in @NYMag: pic.twitter.com/8FhUocdu1y
— Ali A. Rizvi (@aliamjadrizvi) August 3, 2018

I loathe Andrew Sullivan (never forget that he claimed, continuously, Sarah Palin faked a pregnancy, well after the math made that totally impossible), but he's getting so much irrational hatred over his column today that I may be forced to take him somewhat seriously again.
— John Ziegler (@Zigmanfreud) August 3, 2018

The British-born Sullivan worked for the liberal New Republic in the 1990s but rose to prominence in the 2000s as a self-described conservative blogger who backed the Iraq War, same-sex marriage, progressive taxation, ending capital punishment, Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy and Obamacare.