Conor Friedersdorf

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

Characteristically thoughtful essay from @chrislhayes--stick with it through the beginning and it pays off — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

RT @NewLiberalsPod: I despise this Bait and Switch game that happens, in which calling out illiberal excess / abuse is seen as evidence of… — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

RT @NewLiberalsPod: There are people within “Woke” who are genuinely pursuing social justice, and among them are people abusing the movemen… — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

Rarely has so significant a faction in American politics behaved in a way that so directly claims the life of its own supporters. https://t.co/gKtsEkOHba — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@rasmansa @ijbailey I wouldn't say I'm okay with a black person using it as a slur, but I wouldn't refuse to have Chris Rock over to dinner for violating that taboo. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ijbailey The Bailey Twist, right on schedule. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ijbailey @rasmansa I've interviewed students in these controversies who were unaware of the Volokh and Kennedy arguments, and taught not only that there's never a time a white professor should utter that word, but misled into thinking that has long been the consensus position — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@rasmansa @ijbailey I'd like to know whether they understand "using" to include "reading a passage wherein a black person used the word to render that faithfullybfor purposes of classroom instruction while not expressing themselves at all." — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ijbailey @rasmansa I agree that students can conclude whatever they want. My comment was about what they are taught. I think they are being taught some misinformation on this topic that informs their reactions, and that they should be presented all sides and allowed to conclude as they wish. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

Winston Churchill, Mr. Belvedere's former employer, was upset that his erstwhile butler would up attending to an underappreciative sports writer, but I don't see how outdated kerfuffles pass the threshold for tabloid headlines today. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@wwgd123 Only if season 5 of The Wire and that inane journalism plot line does the same for it — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@rasmansa @ijbailey Yes, I think one way students are being ill served is being taught that *quoting as such* as opposed to *using* the word is bigotry, even though older academics were acculturated in a culture where the opposite presumption held and are conveying no prejudice — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@rasmansa @ijbailey The questions are fair. I sometimes wish you'd ask them prior to making assertions about what people must be thinking. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@rasmansa @ijbailey whether wise or unwise, as utterly different. The thing I want a powerful stigma against is bigotry, not word taboos. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@rasmansa @ijbailey I think we should have very strong racial slur taboos. A white person using that slur as a slur is one of a very few things that would cause me to blacklist someone from having dinner at my house, for example. An academic quoting someone else using it to teach strikes me — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@rasmansa @ijbailey Your assumptions about deeper principles and supposed motivations on this often strike me as utterly at odds with my own instincts and assessments, FWIW — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@rasmansa @ijbailey Lots of them. Most of them. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

The Girl Is Mine. Taunting you with all the Paul McCartney *and* Michael Jackson you could be listening to... but instead it's that song, cheesy dialogue and all, over and over. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@DanFriedman81 Ah okay, as you can tell I didn't follow closely, but still, for those who thought there were whips and those who know there weren't alike... What's the logic of no horses? — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

I don't think anyone persuaded more people on that issue. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

So there's the decision to keep out the Hatians... and whips of some sort... and government employees who deployed them... but the horses were the problem? Did I miss a wrinkle in that story or some wonky angle I don't get? — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@MsMelChen Same. I keep wondering if all the hand sanitizer of the last two years is creating a monster bacteria — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ijbailey @MerkinMuffley5 @rasmansa @NAChristakis @mariachong @JacquesTourn I wouldn't call academia a working environment optimized for sanity, as opposed to other goods. Regardless, a chat with a department head about how things might be handled better is different from an investigation by administrators. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ijbailey @MerkinMuffley5 @rasmansa @NAChristakis @mariachong @JacquesTourn Investigations are tools to confirm or disconfirm disallowed behavior, not tools to react to protected but unfavored behavior, and normalizing its use for the latter purpose is a threat to academic freedom. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ijbailey @MerkinMuffley5 @rasmansa @NAChristakis @mariachong @JacquesTourn Again, I have no objection to you raising that issue as a critique. *My issue* is that *in all circumstances, not just this one* professors should not be investigated by state institutions for allegations that, if true, are protected by academic freedom *even if unwise* — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ijbailey @MerkinMuffley5 @rasmansa @NAChristakis @mariachong @JacquesTourn If that's the crux of the issue then the issue is one to be adjudicated in public discourse, not via administrators at a public university, where the professor's approach, wise or not, is protected by academic freedom and the 1st Amendment — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ijbailey @MerkinMuffley5 @rasmansa @NAChristakis @mariachong @JacquesTourn That I keep asking questions to clarify where our understandings diverge is a real time demonstration that I do care, and I wish you'd answer with clarifications! — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ijbailey @MerkinMuffley5 @rasmansa @NAChristakis @mariachong @JacquesTourn Is it in dispute that he used the word in the context of reading MLK aloud? — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ijbailey You do this in more conversations we have than not. Just stick to my actual claims! — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ijbailey Ah, like clockwork, the Bailey twist, where you take what I say--that academic freedom dictates an official investigation should be rejected, as the allegation is covered by it--& substitute a claim I did not make, that "free speech" is threatened if he's merely asked to explain — PolitiTweet.org