For someone to instead, almost instantly, be suspended from one job, dismissed from another and resign from a third because of such a thing is a disproportion of punishment to crime. It is extreme and unnecessary and ultimately lacks reason. There’s something amiss if we’re now at the point that someone’s career is to be permanently tarnished and perhaps ended based on a passing error, which started as a misguided attempt at praise and which has been profusely apologized for. We must assess what the actual purpose of this kind of language policing is. We must ask: What, in terms of combating racism, is accomplished? Will it result in better and more available psychiatric care — or medical care in general — for Black people? Will it make Columbia University, where I am a faculty member, a more open-minded place?
I know that in terms of themes running throughout my newsletter since last summer, my take here may seem predictable. I’ve argued repeatedly — here, here, here and here — against overreaction to what might be called racial insensitivity. But on this subject, that predictability is something I gladly own and see as crucial. I, just like those who scuttled Lieberman, seek justice. It is unjust that someone’s life — and life’s work — be derailed because of a graceless way of putting something in an isolated instance. And race being involved in the gracelessness does not somehow render fairness irrelevant.
So, versed as we are now in the etiquette of the virtual meeting, consider a hypothetical scenario: At the Zoom session where Lieberman was dutifully condemned, one person puts the hand-up sign in her window, and when called on by the moderator, takes a deep breath and says, “Dr. Lieberman’s comment was inappropriate, and I see why a lot of people took exception to it. But I think this treatment of him is excessive. I don’t think he should be suspended or lose his job.” After an awkward pause, the applauding-hands icon appears in a different window, followed quickly by another, until the applauding hands decorate a substantial number of the windows, and many of them are from people of color. The chat section gradually fills up with people chiming in, echoing the meeting’s original Spartacus. The meeting ends in confusion. The next day, those who were brave enough to stand up to this new cancel-first fashion, who together are too numerous to feasibly face punishment for their unwillingness to acquiesce, gather and write a letter outlining their opposition to mauling someone over a minor tort and calling it social justice.
If only. Too often, in reality, we stand by and say nothing as we watch expulsions that we know to be unfair, out of fear that we’ll be next. I am unaware of any precedent that encourages us to think of this as moving society in the right direction.
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John McWhorter (@JohnHMcWhorter) is an associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University. He hosts the podcast “Lexicon Valley” and is the author, most recently, of “Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America.”