Don't mock Internet trolls; they enjoy it too much
Racial eruptions have become so common in the news of the Trump era that they can exhaust one's capacity to remain perpetually outraged. Almost.
Yet, as a new twist on these tribally turbulent times, the case of Sarah Jeong deserves special attention -- and it has been receiving plenty.
Right-wing commentators erupted in high, full-blown dudgeon outrage after Jeong, a highly regarded 30-year-old tech writer and author hired for The New York Times editorial board, was found to have a history of ridiculing "white people" on Twitter.
The questionable tweets, dating back as far as five years ago, included:
"White people! You were already running a karmic deficit but now we're sending it to collections."
"I hope the third travel ban forces white people to undergo additional screening before boarding municipal transportation."
"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing white people that folk music is good."
I could go on but the tweet that sparked the most responses -- and anger -- by my estimation went like this: "Oh man it's kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men."
Ouch! Even I, an old black man but with at least a smidgeon of empathy for my melanin-challenged brethren, felt the sting of that one.
Fox News, Breitbart, the Daily Caller and Rush Limbaugh, among other VIPs in the pantheon of conservative punditry pounced on the Times' apparent hypocrisy. Many cited Quinn Norton, another technology specialist, that the Times hired before Jeong, but who was let go before she even started because of some of her newly discovered tweets.
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