Sarah Haider

Which accounts on Twitter do you follow and find to be genuinely thought-provoking, original, and charitable?

Hillary won the popular vote, yes. But her numbers can be explained by her massive wins in states like California, even while losing states Obama won. This is the definition of polarizing! By contrast, even Bill was able to win contested states. Beto can win too.

By contrast, see below. Forget about value of high-mindedness for a moment. Hillary lost! She lost because she failed to inspire, to bring us together, in other words: to be the foil to Trump.https://twitter.com/cnnpolitics/status/1049684159185055745?s=21 …

Blatant dog apologism. How do we know “Milo” didn’t want to kill and eat the bird? Poor thing seems terrified.https://twitter.com/dog_rates/status/1049744129654181889 …

Thank you @center4inquiry, @seculardotorg, and @americnhumanist for organizing this important briefing. Follow them and support their vital work for nonbelievers here and abroad!https://twitter.com/hemantmehta/status/1049701449133887489 …

The difference in quality between replies to the first tweet in a thread and replies to the last is so telling. Spoiler: thoughtful people are more likely to read the whole thing.

I like to think of myself as someone who welcomes thoughtful disagreement. Instead, this is what I get and we're all poorer for it. Others who are less prone to throwing ad-homs and also disagree, please share your thoughts and I'll consider. https://twitter.com/_danishamin/status/1049398212459749377 …

Of what? Underlying racism? Perhaps, its certainly possible. But as I said, racism on Jeong's part isn't required. Racist language in her context does not mean what it literally says, but instead calls to a confused sort of anti-racist politics.https://twitter.com/HenryTarquin/status/1049380888629239808 …

9. It will be interesting to see how far this goes, the absurdity is already overwhelming. What happens to civil society when discourse cannot arrive at meaning? How do we persuade, how do we move forward together when we increasingly speak in different tongues? (fin)

8. This is disaster for everyone, but most of all for actual *progress*. Accurate, meaningful communication is rendered difficult when words do not mean what they literally say, and correct interpretation requires first an intimate understanding of the underlying ideologies.

7. ...but rather, the language is increasingly formed by how they believe the world should be and how it should become that way (politics), and to signal to others their devotion to the “cause”.

6. She did not come about in a vacuum, nor were her tweets shocking to her coherts. She, and others like her, are the products of a system that has tacitly accepted ways of speaking and describing the world which have nothing to do with how things actually *are* (reality)…

5. This may be sounding like a defense of her words - I assure you it is not! Instead, I think the fury directed towards her was aiming at the wrong target. Jeong was defended by a whole cast of progressive writers, nurtured by elite institutions, and now is legitimized by them.

4. This is how you end up with the Sarah Jeongs of the world. Perhaps she is a racist (her tweets indicate she is), but it is likely that her language really is (as repeated by her defenders) a *performance*. It might indicate real racial hate, but it doesn’t necessarily need to.