A column published in the New York Times on Monday from Princeton Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor dishonestly attempts to defend leftist professors who have faced public criticism after making comments promoting violence.
“When it comes to protecting the speech of people who are most vulnerable to being intimidated into silence — like people of color and gay people — conservatives either are suspiciously quiet or drive further intimidation with wildly negative news coverage,” Taylor writes, arguing that right-wing media only defends speech that it likes.
She cites a few examples, most notably, Johnny Eric Williams, an associate professor at Trinity College who was temporarily suspended from his position after a media backlash over concerning comments he made after the shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise. In her column, Taylor conveniently omits William’s offense. After the brutal shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise, Williams took to Facebook and wrote “#LetThemFuckingDie”.
“It is past time for the racially oppressed to do what people who believe themselves to be ‘white’ will not do, put end to the vectors of their destructive mythology of whiteness and their white supremacy system. #LetThemFuckingDie,” Williams’ Facebook post read.
Around the same time, Williams shared an article of the same name that criticized Capitol Police Officer Crystal Griner, a black woman, for protecting Scalise and other victims of the shooting and then called for minorities to refuse assistance to whites in potentially fatal situations. The post called for those persons to not only watch as others die but to “smile” as they watch, for letting them die is a “great service” to the “universe.”
How did Taylor characterize William’s incident? She wrote that Williams “had to go into hiding after the conservative website Campus Reform blasted his use of racially charged language in critiquing white supremacy.” There was no mention of the disturbing remarks that put him in a position of turmoil.
Taylor also cited the case of Tommy Curry, an associate professor at Texas A&M, who argued during a podcast that “in order to be equal, in order to be liberated, some white people might have to die.”
Taylor omits Curry’s offense entirely, instead referencing a criticism of his words by the American Conservative, which called them “racist bilge.”
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