Thread by @reappropriate

So Nimesh Patel responded, and this op-ed is an ugly attempt to single out and vilify the student organizers of AAA at Columbia. Way to punch down with the power of your celebrity, Nimesh. nytimes.com/2018/12/07/opi…

I have lots of thoughts but first: given the tone of this op-ed whether @nytimes plans to run a similar opinion from the three young people that Patel singled out as the villains?

Because Patel’s argument in this op-ed is basically: “College students aren’t all close-minded oversensitive snowflakes, bt these 3 specific students are. Fuck them.”

Given online harassment Patel’s supporters have already directed towards these students, this is srsly disturbed

Patel admits that the organizers had the right to pull his act but then, confoundingly, argues that they should have let him continue anyways even though audience accounts are that his ENTIRE set thus far (and not just one joke) was 1) offensive, and 2) stinkingly bad.

Let’s also push back against this framing that three college students have more systemic power than a minor celebrity comedian who writes for SNL. Patel is not the victim here — his bombing on stage with a bad set and facing the consequences of that is not him being silenced.

Heck, he writes himself that he has had several gigs since this event where he can use the power of his celebrity to stomp down on the student organizers at Columbia. Silenced? Hardly.

Being able to use the power of your celebrity to leverage an op-ed in @nytimes to attempt to change the narrative and attack three college students — who don’t have this same kind of platform — is the exact opposite of being silenced.

I said before and I’ll say again: it is nonsense to use a free speech framework to argue that people who challenge bad comedians need to shut up, suck it up, and elevate speech they find offensive.

It is absolute nonsense to use a free speech framework to argue that everyone has to like and personally enable or amplify offensive comedy.

What’s being argued actually goes facially against free speech.

In a free marketplace of ideas, individuals can and should pick and choose the ideas and artists that resonates most with them; you are actually arguing against that when you argue that some people are oversensitive and deserving of ridicule when they actually exercise that right

So again let’s be honest: this isn’t about free speech but about a growing anti-progressive movement that enjoys seeing people “take it to the libs.” This is about rejecting the diversification of America and the decentering of the implicitly white male gaze.

It’s irresponsible for Nimesh Patel to use his extensive platform to target three college students who treated him with courtesy even as they realized he had failed to deliver a quality set as hired to do.

Patel should apologize to the organizers of an event that he has, in every way, overshadowed, spoken over, and ruined. Instead, he not only failed the organizers by failing to deliver a qualify set, but he’s also messily attempting to mischaracterize these individuals as at fault

Patel should also tell his supporters to stop harassing Columbia AAA — and me. I, for example, shouldn’t be fielding death threats over this; yet that’s likely only going to get worse after this op-ed.

Yet, Patel did not use his substantial NY Times platform to tell his supporters to stop issuing threats of violence.

In a free marketplace of ideas, if some people dislike an artist for being offensive (or just bad at his craft), others can support that artist if they want to by hiring him themselves. It literally shouldn’t matter why some ppl dislike the artist; if you like him, hire him.

Meanwhile, I continue to hope that student groups will in the future consider this event when contemplating who they plan to invite to their events — students in the AsAm community deserve way better than this unprofessional, condescending and offensive behavior.

Just to bottle the answer: this op-ed by Patel feels like giant middle finger to the entire Asian American student organizing community, and it is a pretty strong indication of what kind of audience he’s really looking to appeal to. Keep that in mind for next time, AsAm students.