Flashback: New York Times Bigot Sarah Jeong Defended UVA Rape Hoaxer

Inset: Sarah Jeong. NEW YORK, NY - JULY 27: The New York Times building stands in Manhatta
Spencer Platt/Getty Images, Sarah Jeong/Google+
Tom Ciccotta

Old tweets from New York Times bigot Sarah Jeong reveal a long-winded defense of the Rolling Stone University of Virginia rape hoaxer.

In 2014, Rolling Stone magazine published the story of University of Virginia student Jackie Coakley, who claimed to have been ganged raped by several of her peers as part of a fraternity initiation rite. As the piece of Jackie’s story began to crumble, recent New York Times hire and notorious bigot Sarah Jeong, who recently came under fire for her history of anti-white tweets, aggressively came to her defense.

Jeong, who prides herself on professionalism as a journalist, aggressively defended the hoaxer as others in the media began to question the legitimacy of her story. In an astonishing blog post that has since been deleted, Jeong argued that the inconsistencies in Jackie’s story only confirmed Jeong’s belief that Jackie’s story was legitimate. “The more I see these ‘inconsistencies’ and ‘discrepancies’ touted as evidence of falsehood, the more convinced I am that Jackie is not lying,” she wrote.

In a series of tweets, Jeong attacked critics of the story. She was convinced that attacks on the story’s legitimacy were a product of society’s tendency to doubt women who claim they have been assaulted.

If you’re a rape victim, you need an airtight affidavit to be believed. If you’ve been accused, you can knock a story over with a feather.

I’m furious with this wishy-washy vague retraction. None of the reasons given are convincing.

There isn’t a good reason to believe Jackie is lying, unless you already want to believe she is lying.

When reporters at major news outlets and activist groups began to poke holes in the story, Jeong attacked the outlets. She accused the Washington Post, Slate, and RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network) of making things worse for “real rape victims.”

There was shoddy reporting in this story, and that’s not Jackie’s story “falling apart.” That has to do with shoddy reporting.

“There wasn’t a party on our calendar that night” and “I’ve never met this girl” aren’t refutations of rape.

Jackie isn’t making things worse for “real rape victims.” Rolling Stone is. The Washington Post is. Slate is. RAINN is.

Jeong, who has come under fire this tweet for her unusual tweets about white men, found a way to attack the University of Virginia rape hoax through a racial lens. “It’s literally only been white men tweeting terrible responses to my tweets about rape,” she tweeted. “The people who called bullshit on this story called bullshit because they couldn’t believe nice white college boys were monsters,” she wrote in another.

 

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