On January 18, 2023, the racist black female Washington Post columnist made as ass of herself by insisting that the newly unveiled sculpture (in Boston) celebrating the marriage of Martin Luther King and Coretta “perfectly represents how White America loves to butcher MLK.” Karen Attiah didn’t bother to check on the race of the sculptor (who was black) or the commission that approved the design (mostly black). I wrote in part,
How can someone be an incompetent racist? Like this. Al Sharpton is a skilled racist. Joy Reid is a skilled racist. Michelle Obama is a skilled racist. Charles Blow is a skilled racist. Appiah is a ridiculously careless and dumb racist. How could someone publish a diatribe like she did without checking to see whether the artist was white?She could because she is such a racist that it never occurred to her that something she objected to wasn’t the fault of whites. This is the apex of racism, its most ugly form. To the KKK, everything wrong with their nation was the fault of blacks, Catholics and immigrants. To Hitler, all of Germany’s ills were attributable to Jews. To people like Attiah—and don’t kid yourself, there are a lot of them—whites are the enemy, evil and a human pathogen on society.That’s bad enough that it should disqualify her from a position of authority and influence at the Washington Post. But she also has exposed herself as frighteningly lacking basic reporting skills and journalistic integrity. She is doubly untrustworthy. No apology, no excuse-making can erase this debacle.I am eager to see if the Post has the courage and professionalism, as well as respect for its readers, to do what has to be done. My guess?No.
Well I was wrong, but it took the Post almost three years and another Charlie Kirk smear to do what it should have done then. With the weird graphic above, Attiah defiantly announced that she had been fired by the Washington Post. The reason was an Attiah post on Bluesky (an account on that bias-celebrating platform screams “I am an Axis journalist!”):
Oooh, damning! Racist! Except that Kirk never said that, despite the fact than Attiah put the statement in quotes. What he said, according to Attiah’s source, The Guardian, was…
“If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
The quote was not about black women at all, but referring to four specific and named black women who Kirk believed had demonstrated that they were not qualified for the positions they occupied. (I’d say that three of the four clearly warrant Kirk’s assessment; I’m not sure about Michelle. I would have used Kamala Harris).
Attiah, then, rewrote the quote to make Kirk seem prejudiced against all black women. She used quotation marks, though what she wrote was not what he said. She intentionally lied to readers to make Kirk’s assassination seem deserved. That’s why she was fired by the Post, and the only point of contention is why, as an anti-white, racist hack with no regard for journalism ethics (not that the Post wins any prizes in that area either), she was working for the paper in the first place.
Ethics Alarms 
Excellent. Thanks from those of us who don’t have the patience and grit to read the WAPO.
Oh, I subscribe to the Post but only read it when I have to.
I searched for the image in this post and received no results for elsewhere on the web. Did she post this image, or was it crafted to illustrate this posts point?
I am wondering about:
“I searched for the image in this post and received no results for elsewhere on the web.”
I got numerous hits for the image. It’s also on her substack article where it probably originated.
https://karenattiah.substack.com/p/the-washington-post-fired-me-but
Even in that substack post she said, “My only direct reference to Kirk was one post— his own words on record.” – a reference to the bluesky post included in Jack’s post.
I think anyone (with critical thinking skills) that reads her substack post should prepare for a head explosion.
It’s on the online version of Editor & Publisher, posted 9/15, with a “Graphic Credit Ethan W Photography”, and that seems to be Ethan Wong, a Washington D.C. photographer. A good Internet search will reveal that Wong has done other images of Attiah.
Yes, Michelle Obama was a bad example for him to have used. She unequivocally met the one and only qualification that has ever existed for First Lady, namely that she was married to the President. I expect that most men choose wives at least partly for reasons that have little to do with their potential performance as First Lady, and trying to tie that in with Affirmative Action seems bizarre and incongruous.
But not as bizarre or incongruous as describing a black artist as representing White America.
Charlie was presenting a hypothetical…”If we would have said…”. So in that sense, I think using Michelle Obama – even though she is the most unlike the others – is permitted.
Here’s another angle: Mrs. Obama’s words on numerous subjects have been given tremendous weight, even though when I hear her speak, she seems to offer little real-world knowledge or insight. By including her in the list, maybe Kirk was suggesting that it was her perceived credibility on those subjects that was the result of DEI.
It’s hard for me to think this deeply on a Tuesday morning…actually, any morning…
Chew these thoughts carefully before swallowing.
Did he include her because she was First Lady or because she gets millions for producing shows for Netflix?
I knew the name Charlie Kirk but I had paid little attention to him or other well-known conservative influencers. For that reason, I didn’t know anything really about him to know what he has said or done in the past. Since his death, I have been seeing all kinds of quotes attributed to him that are being revealed as misleading after the fact.
Now I understand that Kirk appears to be arguing in the quote above that it is the Left that is telling black Americans that they aren’t smart enough to get positions on their own, but have to rely on DEI programs to get ahead. I agree with you that Michelle Obama does not belong on the list of names. She was not elected or put into a position with her race being a significant contributing factor (her husband might have been, but she can hardly be faulted for that).
However, I really think conservative speakers need to be very precise these days because I can see how some people might interpret Kirk’s words as bordering on racism. “You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.” is a clumsy statement that can be easily misinterpreted. It might have been better if he’d said, “The Left doesn’t think you are intelligent enough to get positions in a Meritocracy because it rejects the premise of a Meritocracy. Instead, it tells you that, ‘Because of systemic racism, you have to be given an edge. Your skin color should allow you to take a position that might otherwise go to a white person. You will never be taken seriously because the system is weighed to keep out people of color.'”
Understanding the narrative of the Left is important in order to combat their influence. It does little good to give them fodder they can easily twist to make you a villain. Of course, they will try to do that anyway.
You don’t seem to realize that Charlie Kirk….debated…he didn’t use sound bites and short answers he expounded, clarified, inquired….
Youve got a valid point, but trying to craft your points so they can’t be taken out of context by people who are determined to do so is a fool’s errand. All trying to do so will accomplish is your own silence while you try to find the perfect way to phrase it.
I believe Kirk’s statement has been misinterpreted.
He starts by saying If a white person said this and ends with the inference taken by minorities. He did not suggest that he believed they did not have the competence.
What he said was that these women are projecting what they think many believe not necessarily what he believes. The statement must be view as a whole thought not two different lines of thinking.
Take the first part which states if a white person said they were affirmative action hires being racist and then the last part which explains why it would be considered racist and you will see that he was calling out the hypocrisy of these women’s proclamations of being proud affirmative action beneficiaries . Michelle Obama stated she got a leg up from affirmative action.
I think yours is a solid interpretation. I had not heard that statement from Michelle, so your thoughts act as a correction to my response to DaveL.
Chris,
As always, you are perceptive and insightful. I truly enjoy your commentary on issues presented on this blog, especially when you posit economic theories in conjunction with ethics. Very interesting, indeed.
jvb
How would Charlie Kirk know–how would anyone know–it was a white person’s slot?
As for Michelle Obama, the senior thesis she wrote at Princeton more than justifies her inclusion in the company of the others.
And Karen Attiah is racist trash. To state the obvious.
I am always a bit troubled when I see an ellipsis in a quote – what did the quoter leave out, and why?
Well, there’s a web site which has transcripts of the Charlie Kirk shows. (I won’t even attempt to post a link, but the site is app.podscribe and you’ll have to add the dot com to that and then maybe search in the site). But, from July 13, 2023, a complete quote is available, better than either Attiah or the Guardian.
The transcriptions seem to be imperfect, but the audio is there as well.
Here’s a more complete quote without the ellipsis: “But now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us, and they’re coming out and they’re saying, I’m only here because of affirmative action. Yeah, we know you do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously”.
The part about stealing a white person’s slot — I can’t tell if that is Kirk imagining what the left is saying to themselves about affirmative action, or if he is describing what he thinks of the four women he mentioned. If the latter, then he was unethically out of line. In a color-blind society, there is no such thing as a white person’s slot.
Regardless, Attiah was way off base and deserved firing.
I don’t know how to interpret that part. I was, as I have related here before, told outright that I was in line to be hired as an Asst.U.S. attorney after a long process, but that the decision was made that they needed more minorities and women, so my slot went to someone who was one or both. It was MY “slot” based on the process, I had earned it, and and it was “given” to someone else. In the sense that I was white, it was a “white person’s slot.” My replacement didn’t “steal” it however.
(Years later I met one of the minority candidates who was hired though I had ranked higher after the interviews and other aspects of the application process. He was a judge by then. I always wanted to be a judge….)
I’m thinking it really was a “minority person’s slot”, and that the person who told you that you were in line to be hired either did not know that about the slot or was making an effort to soften the blow that was coming.
The way it happened was this: I was first told that there were 6 openings and that I was in the final six, meaning a notice was forthcoming. Then I was told that there had been a policy decision that there was room for only one white male in the final six, and that slot was reserved for the son of the Chief Judge of the DC court of Appeals at the time. Honestly, I just shrugged it off. I was shocked that I had made it that far anyway, because I hadn’t practiced law in five years: I applied as a longshot. One of my strengths/weaknesses is that I never lacked confidence in my ability to land on my feet, and I’m such a dilettante that I’ve always reacted to things like that with “Ok, then I’ll do something else that interests me.”
https://x.com/marymargolohan/status/1968038545387589896?s=46
The media are angling to humanize this filth.