The mainstream media has apparently learned nothing from the reckoning it faced after Justine Sacco, a random woman with barely 100 Twitter followers, was fired from her job for tweeting about AIDS and being white.
The media – and people on social media – still seem to enjoy the power trip they get from getting a random person fired. The latest example comes from The Washington Post, where two reporters wrote 3,000-plus words about a woman who was not previously a public figure who wore blackface two years ago at a Post cartoonist’s party.
The woman whose life has been upended (who will not be named by The Daily Wire) attended Post editorial cartoonist Tom Tole’s Halloween party, where political elites and others gather each year, many dressed in politically relevant costumes. For example, in 2018, the Post reported, Dana Milbank dressed as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who had just been confirmed a couple weeks earlier. Milbank made a satirical reference to Kavanaugh by wearing a “beer-dispensing device on his head.”
As is often the case, someone thought they were making a satirical reference but instead fell flat. One woman at the party dressed as Megyn Kelly in blackface, following the then-NBC host’s statements about wearing blackface. The woman was trying to mock Kelly, but two other women at the party confronted her then and have apparently been stewing about the incident ever since. They have now been rewarded by being featured in the Post’s article about the incident from two years, which has been dredged up in the wake of race riots across the country. One of the two women first emailed Toles – whom she had never met – telling him how offended she was that a guest at his party dressed that way.
“In 2018, I attended a Halloween party at your home,” the woman wrote. “I understand that you are not responsible for the behavior of your guests, but at the party, a woman was in Blackface. She harassed me and my friend — the only two women of color — and it was clear she made her ‘costume’ with racist intent.”
The woman then asked for Toles’ help in identifying the woman and emailed the Post to get them to cover the incident – which it obviously obliged.
The other offended woman said she didn’t want an apology (read: she wanted to destroy the woman who wore the costume), and she wanted Toles to atone for the incident.
The costumed woman was apparently run out of the party in tears, so it’s not like she wasn’t made aware of her mistake. She had already been punished and was embarrassed and regretful of her costume choice. But that wasn’t enough for the two women who convinced the Post to punish this woman further – two years after the fact.
The woman has now been fired from her job. One partygoer told the Post that reopening the incident would “be too much of a punishment.” The Post did it anyway.
People on Twitter shot back at the Post. Reason reporter Elizabeth Nolan Brown tweeted: “If you’re an adult who is ‘physically & emotionally’ threatened by an offensive Halloween constume [sic] and still scarred by it 2 years later— get help y’all. That’s not on anyone but you.”
Katie Herzog tweeted in jest: “BREAKING: Woman No One Has Ever Heard of Commits Microagression Two Years Ago.”
Others pointed out that the woman being ostracized is a liberal who vehemently opposes President Donald Trump, but that isn’t enough to save her in today’s current climate, where being offended gets people media attention.
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