Husband. Black dad. Stutterer. Davidson College Professor of Practice. McClatchy News columnist. Harvard Nieman Fellow. Sweet tea drinker. CIDP survivor.
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Nov 26, 2024 • 27 tweets • 5 min read
OK, about this...
First the journalism. I've seen similar framing in stories by @nytimes and @TheAtlantic and elsewhere. Supposedly skeptical journalists have swallowed hook, line and sinker the framing these guys push forth. I see no challenge. It's like an ad for this place. 1/
For instance, one of these dudes says a college president receiving an email a week from someone saying someone else should be fired for speech reminded him of Stalin's Soviet Union - and got absolutely no pushback from the interviewer. 2/
Nov 15, 2024 • 32 tweets • 6 min read
Let me tell you what grates on my last nerves: Being lectured to about conservatives and Trump fans by people who spend their downtime in Paris or are living in liberal bastions in California.
A thread.
I teach in a blue county in purple North Carolina while living in a red county in red South Carolina. Trump supporters are my literal neighbors, people I went to church with for years, folks who had my kids over at their houses, mine over at theirs.
Nov 12, 2024 • 23 tweets • 4 min read
I just got out of class so now have time to answer this, and why how we answer this matters. So, to recap: 2+2 doesn't ALWAYS equal 4.
A thread. 1/
Thomas is a smart dude. But he's done what most of us do: assume we agreed on the inputs. Why? Because in most cases, the assumption that we are talking about 2 single integers and 2 single integers is correct. It's why we don't stop to think, because usually we don't have to. 2/
Oct 25, 2024 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Huge Media Fail: Coverage of the economy.
Exhibit A: Nancy Pelosi goes on CNN and says something straight up factual, that Trump has the worst job creation of any president. If you check the numbers and treat Trump the way we have presidents before him, that's true. 1/
How did @CNN, other media outlets and fact-checkers respond to that factual claim? Some said she was only half true. Others dismissed what she said outright. Why? Because Trump had to deal with a major crisis. Guess what? Other presidents also dealt with major crises. 2/
Oct 10, 2024 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
I'm going to use Tyler's rationale to, say, academic freedom and free speech. See if it holds up.
Thread: Academic freedom/free speech is not a neutral framework dropped from the sky, it's an ideology about which reasonable people, including people of color, disagree. 1/
I have benefitted from and agree with many aspects of the principles of academic freedom/free speech. Heck, I've worked hard on the issue myself. But pretending it isn't a political framework that only one side tries to define within particular parameters is a flagrant lie. 2/
Aug 9, 2024 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Pieces like this are fine and necessary, and they will likely increase between now and November. That's what a healthy press is supposed to do, question those in power. Why do so many people push back on such an incredibly important function of our democracy? 1/
I don't agree with those who think "leftists" simply don't want any bad thing said about their candidate, or don't want their candidate to face scrutiny. I think it's because the political press has screwed up royally in recent cycles and has refused to do any soul-searching. 2/
Jul 26, 2024 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
This is a bad-faith reading of that Zoom call. Disagree or agree, many thoughtful people believed it was necessary. A thread about why the call wasn't designed to encourage "white people to see themselves first and foremost as white people with distinct racial interests." 1/
The call was the opposite of white people getting together for "distinct racial interests." It was built on data from the past few election cycles during which white women were a big source of votes for Donald Trump, and about how to change that reality this time around. 2/
Jul 24, 2024 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
About that Fox News clip. Consider the power of priming. Were you primed to hear "college" or "colored"? Priming happens in a lot of ways. What is priming? It's simply tapping into implicit associations we already have. For example. If I said "salt" you will quickly think... 1/
I don't even have to say the word and you know it's "pepper." It's the same with "peanut butter and...," and so on. In this case, the clip came with a description that said "colored." That's one form of priming, not anything nefarious. We do it all the time in journalism. 2/
Jul 9, 2024 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
I said earlier the strongest element in media isn't bias, but narrative. That's what I've learned from 25 years in this industry. Let me give you a non-political example. Do you remember how journalists handled a "major" story in 2001? No, I'm not talking about 9/11. 1/
I'm talking about the Summer of the Shark. In early July, an 8-year-old boy was attacked by a shark. That set off a frenzy in media that didn't abate until Sept. 11. I was in a Myrtle Beach, S.C. newsroom at the time. We had no shark attacks as far back as we could remember. 2/
Jul 1, 2024 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
My final thread of the day. Biden's stutter:
If he plans to remain the nominee, which he seems to, he needs to get adult stutterers as advisors ASAP. I'm an adult stutterer. He doesn't have to choose me, but somebody. Fluent speakers don't understand the complexities at play. 1/
Here is something counterintuitive: In Biden's condition, the more you prepare, the more pronounced the stutter is likely going to be. Also, it is really easy for non-stutterers to assume mental decline even if it is just a pronounced stutter. 2/
May 21, 2024 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This is a false comparison Tim repeatedly makes. Gore conceded and moved on. The Democratic Party did also. During the campaign, Gore declined to look at a stolen debate prep tape that was stolen from the Bush camp and sent to the Gore folks. Also, here's the huge difference. 1/2
Democrats never violently attacked the Capitol to overturn the results of an election - Trump supporters did, and since then have had help from a ton of Republicans to keep that lie alive, even in court rulings and potential laws. Also... 2/
May 13, 2024 • 28 tweets • 5 min read
Thread.
Since Peterson poked his head into things he clearly doesn't understand, I'll do a deep dive on DEI statements here.
A thread on what actually happens in "woke" college classrooms. I mentioned earlier in my racially diverse Debate & Deliberation course, the primary text was Randall Kennedy's "Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word." How did students respond? 1/ tinyurl.com/mv2ws3mk
Throughout the semester, we went through the book. If the students didn't ensure the discussions were challenging, I did. We also watched Chris Rock's 1996 "Bring the Pain." Non-black students were the most uncomfortable while watching it.
2/tinyurl.com/29pa6zzw
Mar 25, 2024 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
The most telling thing Luntz says: "Let's not talk about if [the charges] are justified or not."
Let that sink in. Either we believe no one is above the law, or we don't. Which is it? And if more people want to vote for him because of this, that says something awful about us. 1/
@maggieNYT did some amazing reporting months ago, detailing that one of the primary reasons Trump was running for re-election wasn't because he wanted to be prez again, but to avoid legal scrutiny of all the things he had been involved in. Folks need to re-read that coverage. 2/
Mar 16, 2024 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
I know I’m just supposed to just accept these things or be labeled a poll truther or someone with my head buried in the sand, but I’m stubborn. Blame my mama. Please read Nate’s analysis before you read my short thread about this analysis. I don’t want to bias you first. 1/
I’ll begin where I always begin. There are only two options for recent voting data about voters of color. Either we are amid a generational voting shift, or these polls are off, and off by a lot. I don’t make predictions or trying to convince you to believe one over the other. 2/
Mar 5, 2024 • 35 tweets • 7 min read
I've finished up my reporting on this. I'm a professor at Davidson College, a veteran journalist, and I helped lead the efforts that produced the first Commitment to Freedom of Expression statement for a school like ours in North Carolina. Here's what I found. A thread. 1/
I finally have a time for this today; been tied up with real work since Jesse tweeted. I've had plenty of people send it to me as a massive refutation of the point me and other journalists have made. This "confirmation" wouldn't withstand the standard Jesse has himself set. 1/
Jesse's "confirmation is a two-sentence statement that doesn't deal with the issues at hand. That's literally it! The Atlantic said they fact-check all pieces and got "confirmed" it from contemporaneous accounts from NYT employees. Wow. That settles everything! 2/
Feb 19, 2024 • 34 tweets • 7 min read
Awhile back, I promised @Tyler_A_Harper I'd deal with the question of "privilege" for black people such as myself. Here it is. But I'll do it the way I did it for my students. Read this thread THEN decide if Halle Bailey (The Little Mermaid) is from a privileged background. 1/
The Little Mermaid, Halle Bailey, is my niece, the youngest daughter of my second-oldest brother Doug who took companies public and was big in real estate before/while managing @chloexhalle's careers. Their mom was a head hunter for some big companies I won't mention. 2/
Feb 6, 2024 • 33 tweets • 7 min read
As a black journalist who was born in the Deep South in the shadow of Jim Crow, this resonates with me and is why I empathize with the trans community as a journalist AND as a black man. A thread.
I'll start here. I am in the hospital as I type this. Not sure how long I'll be able to go, between tests and woozy feelings. Why start here? To provide context about how "uncertainty" in trans treatment is not an anomaly but a normal part of 21st century medicine.
Feb 4, 2024 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
It is absolutely fair for Muslims in America to be extremely frustrated with and even hurt by the Biden administration. No one with a soul would deny that. And it's also, frankly, healthy, even with the threat of Trump. Black people know these political dilemmas well. 1/
If you vote for someone and go along with everything they do, or quietly accept it, even when it is literally causing great harm to those you love, you'd be a fool, a veritable cult member. That's not healthy for the individual, or our democracy. 2/
Feb 2, 2024 • 48 tweets • 8 min read
I invite Caitlin, and anyone else who believes the bullshit in this essay, to come visit one of my classes at @DavidsonCollege. What's interesting is that @TheAtlantic keeps publishing pieces like this but won't publish "the other side" from folks like me. A well-kept secret:
I've had my free expression rights threatened far more often as a journalist than as a professor. I've never had a supervisor/department chair/college DEI official storm into my class and tell me not to teach a particular subject, or in a particular way.
