Thread by @sahrasulaiman

Woke up still thinking about how incredible it was that this story by @RichReadReports was published. I'd love to see the @latimes talk about this and show readers how any machinery they've put in place to do better works in real time.

.@latimes deleted the tweet, but the story remains up. The most egregious thing - the claim that they opposed "racial guilt" was removed - but the rest of the story remains largely the same. And it's BAD.

https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1311553846838063105

Let's take a look at why. It starts off by legitimizing the idea folks not wanting Black people to be killed by police is a left "insurrection" and part of an "increasingly volatile culture war" (e.g. a source of disorder, hence necessitating someone to restore "law & order").

The idea that Black ppl shouldn't be subjected to state violence is reduced to a "social justice protest" while also harmfully lumped in with descriptions of "antifa" and "leftists" that draw on rhetoric from the right. Then they are positioned almost as equivalents.

Then, instead of an explainer telling us that they are vehemently in denial of the idea that institutional racism and structural violence exist, Biggs is quoted to give credence to the idea that an insurrection is indeed afoot.

Well this is embarrassing. Turns out @RichReadReports left "racial guilt" in there as if it is a legitimate beef, instead of explaining why the concept itself is racist.

Again, he's lumping in BLM and "leftists" and presenting the call for police to be more "aggressive" towards folks protesting police aggression with no context whatsoever.

You can be brown or Black and still uphold systems that perpetuate white supremacy. It's not that complicated. But I see a lot of white reporters not knowing how to engage that in a meaningful way. So you get this kind of weaksauce quote inserted for "balance," but that's all.

[But Biggs is given the last word on whether his views are problematic later in the piece.]

Moving on, we get more unchecked narration from Biggs rather than an explanation of how he has long threatened to bring the Proud Boys back to Portland every month until "antifa" was declared a terrorist org. wweek.com/news/courts/20…

It’s hard to know who the butt of the joke is here, but I'd vote for it being the reporter for letting Biggs rant about insurrections for the nth time, this time characterizing the idea that securing the right of Black ppl to move freely through the public space is predatory.

"A drinking club"

Institutional change is really hard. This coming out right after the LAT's pledge to do better reminded me of how I got a similar pledge after a year+ of battles w/ someone in my own network only to have that person send me an insensitive joke two minutes after we hung up.

The day before this Proud Boys story came out, the @latimes also let this slip through: Robin Abacarian calling neo-Nazis white "militants"

https://twitter.com/sahrasulaiman/status/1311189181364752384

There are some incredible reporters at the @latimes and it has been so inspiring to see their voices gaining traction and leading the call for change *while still managing to put out important work*.

But they can't carry that weight alone. And they can't be the ones that always have to speak up - it's too much to ask. Real institutional change is about decentering voices, narratives, frameworks & language that legitimize and uphold white supremacy...as this story did.

So please do better by those reporters, @latimes. Be the kind of institution that they (and we) can believe in - one that shows us it values their voices by not working to undermine them at every turn.