Some responses to Cochrane's reaction to the Uhlig incident...
Somehow creates the impression that the really important thing to talk about is 'the cancel culture twitter mob' and not the black community wanting not to be shot by the police.
Misrepresents Harald's writings. There were several interventions. Comments on Charlottesville. Comments on Kaeperneck. Comments on the looting. A pattern of impulsively finding fault with the protests, mocking and insulting the protesters.
Both does and does not grasp the point. Cochrane cites Janet Yellen's intervention as a cause for concern because 'she is the sitting President of the American Economic Association' ... and ...she speaks on behalf of that association'.
Yes! When you have a job and do it, you represent to others how your employer would have you do it, and people use your speech to make inferences about that. That is the point! That is why Harald's suitability for JPE editor, and now as a teacher, is in question.
'The race was on to call Harld a racist.' John mocks those who commented impugning their motives [they didn't have a legitimate critique of Harald's impulsive fault finding and misrepresentation, they just wanted to find someone to call a racist].
'Start by actually reading Harald's tweets'. This is particularly incendiary, since John doesn't 'start by actually reading' or rather inviting us to read the whole relevant part of Harald's fault-finding with anti-racist protest oeuvre, which is considerable, see earlier tweet.
I find myself at a loss to discover that John thinks that this below is somehow helpful and exculpatory context for the comments a former student [corroborated by others] said Harald made about MLK and MLK day. 
'Yeh ok so he is alleged to have made fun of the murdered head of the movement that sought to dismantle American apartheid but you have to appreciate there is a tricky timetabling problem for macro classes.'
John finishes with a rhetorical crescendo, alerting us to the real threats to liberty and a hope that the right people do the courageous things.
Is it too much to ask that you don't racially harrass students? Or that if you edit a journal where one might submit research into racism that you don't intervene frequently to mock and find fault with anti-racist protest?
Final note on the 'the race was on to call Harald a racist'. Note how he almost makes a joke of what you can turn up if you google 'uhlig racist' as though it were preposterous.
OK forgive White Dude Whitesplains Racism here, but this is one to another, so perhaps forgiveable. No-one can peer into Harald's head. He did make several anti-racist remarks himself 'racism is wrong' he managed to tweet, for example. But...
...as one replier of colour pointedly remarked in response to an earlier thread, the issue is outcomes, not intent. Harald's frequent interventions to mischaracterize and pick holes in anti racists and anti racist protests, and to diminish and mock them have two effects:
1) they cause harm to the inevitable targets and 2) they make people draw inferences - correct or not - about what really agitates Harald. 'Racism' seems like a reasonable candidate summary of it; Harald not self-identifying as a 'racist' is not enough.
A PPS: note the call to arms to people with deep pockets here:
John is rightly anticipating that Chicago and the JPE worry that their brands will be hurt in a market that increasingly does not want racism.
Just speculating, but a market that includes anti-racists who don't want racist teachers, or anti-racists researhers who want a fair hearing by an editor might discipline participants to give them what they want.
So we have the spectacle of a free marketeer pleading with rich people to strong arm institutions into resisting this liberty-ending market desire for anti-racism.
The market is great, except when it demands its teachers don't mock anti-racists impulsively. Then it's not so great, and we need to get money off rich people to help teachers through what might be a tricky patch for revenues.
