Well, ugh. This is one of those complicated ethics issues that takes a long time to understand and write about, requires a great deal of my time and yours, and on a cost-benefit basis, seems like a misalignment of resources. However, I can’t ignore it, and it is an important case.

As you know, Substack has exploded in recent years as a profitable web platform for subscription opinion newsletters across the political spectrum and on almost every topic imaginable. (As a result, free blogs like mine are going the way of the Diplodocus.) In November, The Atlantic published a piece by Jonathan Katz titled “Substack Has a Nazi Problem.” It’s behind a paywall, but the gist of the article is stated up front:

“…just beneath the surface, the platform has become a home and propagator of white supremacy and anti-Semitism. Substack has not only been hosting writers who post overtly Nazi rhetoric on the platform; it profits from many of them.

Substack, founded in 2017, has terms of service that formally proscribe “hate,” along with pornography, spam, and anyone “restricted from making money on Substack”—a category that includes businesses banned by Stripe, the platform’s default payment processor. But Substack’s leaders also proudly disdain the content-moderation methods that other platforms employ, albeit with spotty results, to limit the spread of racist or bigoted speech. An informal search of the Substack website and of extremist Telegram channels that circulate Substack posts turns up scores of white-supremacist, neo-Confederate, and explicitly Nazi newsletters on Substack—many of them apparently started in the past year. These are, to be sure, a tiny fraction of the newsletters on a site that had more than 17,000 paid writers as of March, according to Axios, and has many other writers who do not charge for their work. But to overlook white-nationalist newsletters on Substack as marginal or harmless would be a mistake….

Reacting to Katz’s article, nearly 250 writers hosted on the platform signed an open letter on the issue, beginning with “We’re asking a very simple question that has somehow been made complicated: Why are you platforming and monetizing Nazis?” and concluding with, in part, “Why do you choose to promote and allow the monetization of sites that traffic in white nationalism?… We, your publishers, want to hear from you on the official Substack newsletter. Is platforming Nazis part of your vision of success? Let us know — from there we can each decide if this is still where we want to be.”

The Substack management responded with this. The short version:

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That’s probably the most Dean Martin-ish of all Dean Martin records, and since I didn’t get to post it as I usually do during the holidays, since it snowed all day here yesterday, and since I miss Dean terribly, there it is. Speaking of snow, if I was like the climate change-obsessed (Science!) and had no shame, I’d cite the MLK Day storm along with the fact that it didn’t snow once the whole year when I first came to Northern Virginia over 50 years ago as evidence that Al Gore’s pet issue is a lot of over-hyped hooey. I’m not like Them, however, so I won’t.

Now, some MLK Day ethics notes:

1. Stop making me defend Joe Biden!

The conservative media and its pundit piled on President Biden for saying yesterday, of all days, “Even Dr. King’s assassination did not have the worldwide impact that George Floyd’s death did.” It is a strange and annoying statement to make on a holiday honoring King to be sure, but Joe’s brain-fog is likely to make him say all sorts of strange things. That statement is, sadly, spot on. Dr. King’s life had a historic impact on the U.S., but his assassination made less of a ripple world wide than the death of Princess Diana. Here, there were race riots in several cities (especially D.C.) following his death in April of 1968, but they were less destructive than the previous summer’s rioting. President Johnson used the riots to speed the passage of his signature legislative package, the Civil Rights Act of 1968. It probably would have been passed anyway, but that’s just speculation. MLK Day celebrates the importance of King’s life, a catalyst for civil rights advances, the end of Jim Crow policies in the South and the nation’s acceptance of integration. George Floyd, in contrast, had no positive effects on society while he was alive. It is absurd that his death, a non-racial episode exploited by activists, led first to the massive rioting it did and the subsequent rise of Critical Race Theory-inspired indoctrination in schools as well as intense DEI-fueled discrimination against whites across all sectors, but it is undeniable. Would some other incident have triggered the same response if moral luck hadn’t claimed the life of Floyd? Sure. Nonetheless, Biden was right, just as he would have been right to say the assassination of an obscure Austrian duke in Sarajevo had more “worldwide impact” than the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

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The Rice University Course Catalogue:

CHEM 125 – AFROCHEMISTRY

Long Title: AFROCHEMISTRY: THE STUDY OF BLACK-LIFE MATTER

Department: Chemistry

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Undergraduate Professional,Visiting Undergraduate, Undergraduate

Description: Students will apply chemical tools and analysis to understand Black life in the U.S. and students will implement African American sensibilities to analyze chemistry. Diverse historical and contemporary scientists, intellectuals, and chemical discoveries will inform personal reflections and proposals for addressing inequities in chemistry and chemical education. This course will be accessible to students from a variety of backgrounds including STEM and non-STEM disciplines. No prior knowledge of chemistry or African American studies is required for engagement in this course.

“Black life-matter!” Get it?

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Pointer: Stephen Greene