Since campus censor @bariweiss is back on her bullshit, let me tell a story I've never told publicly before, about what real censorship by people with actual power looks like, when people with power (on campus) want to stop you talking, not like her fake outrage nonsense
When I was in college, in Texas, I was very involved with the movement to teach real science and history in schools, specifically climate change, the role of slavery in the Civil War, and evolution. Obviously that upset people and I got death threats through college.
It also, likely, upset rich donors. (And I've never wanted to tell this story, because trashing your alma mater isn't classy, don't get in the dirt with pigs, etc.) We were in Texas and I was messing with oil money, evangelicals and republican politicians
To start, the school essentially just ignored my work, they never talked about me like they would other students, they promoted something making fun of me, but then, they actively got involved with blocking my freedom of speech
I was giving an interview to a local TV station (the FOX affiliate no less) in the school's quad. TV stations did interviews there all the time. Someone affiliated with the school, who knew me, saw it and called the cops.
The campus police showed up and shut down the interview. If I wanted to do any more interviews, I had to clear it with the school first.
Whenever I did any other TV interviews at the school, I had a monitor watching me and making it clear that nothing I said was affiliated with the school. Obviously, having police and literal censors looking over my shoulder and disavowing what I was saying is chilling.
This was unusual. The TV guy whose interview was shut down, told me he had never seen anything like it in 20 years of doing interviews at the school.
The difference, obviously, is I was involved in advocacy that broadly reads as leftwing. When someone wanted to send me a message, I wasn't cancelled, my judgement wasn't questioned. The fucking police was called.
And again, I was a white kid, I wasn't the face of a BLM protest, I wasn't a radical (then). And that was the reaction. It can get so much fucking worse.
Because of that, I was essentially in hiding doing my advocacy work. (@cjcmichel may remember interviewing me in my dorm attic where the school wouldn't find out. That's how we met.) And it really was damaging in terms of my freedom of speech and my general quality of life
The point is, when it comes to power, the rich, the old, the white, the police, they're the ones with the ability to censor. James Bennet has never been censored in his life. Charlie Kirk has never had the police called on him for doing an interview in his quad.
And Bari Weiss still has a job despite being an utter fucking moron who has never produced an ounce of meaningful work. And she has never once advocated for kids, like me, like these protesters, who had the cops called on them because they expressed views she doesn't like
I don't enjoy telling this story because it feels petty and it feels unfair to the many people at the school who were with me and weren't shitheads and it's not the point. But the campus crusader has never experienced anything like that, so it's grating
Oh, and I can't tell you how many times, I've been told I can't get a job in media, report out a story, write something, etc, because I'm too biased with my background is activism, while the entire fucking NYTs clique gets to defend fascism as a reasonable opinion worth debating
.@bariweiss debate me you coward
TLDR:
Cancelling people =/= Censorship
Police censorship = Censorship
Cancelling people =/= Censorship
Police censorship = Censorship
A final note, those death threats I mentioned, when I reported them to the police, I don't think they even made a police report b/c they didn't give a shit
This obviously isn’t *that* big of a deal and doesn’t deserve any attention beyond Twitter. But I think it’s more censorship than Weiss has ever described in a single one of her columns on how awful it was that Lobster boy or some other Nazi was cancelled
