Aside from the fact that Conor Friedersdorf thinks that someone being removed from a listserv is among the terrifying evidence of cancel accountability culture gone shockingly wild, once he set the following words to paper he triggers an automatic dismissal of anything else he might have to say.
But in the stifling, anti-intellectual cultural climate of 2020, where solidarity is preferred to dissent, I hear echoes of a familiar Manichaean logic: Choose a side. You are either an anti-racist or an ally of white supremacy. Are you with us or against us?
Well… shit, man: yes. Yes that’s literally exactly the choice, and it’s not a difficult one. There’s no middle ground there. Whatever (mostly invalid) criticisms there might be about potential overreach in holding people accountable for word and deed, if you’re framing the debate this way in order to dismiss it, you’ve chosen your side.
Yikes.
Bonus read: Jillian C. York on what real censorship looks like in the world. (Hint: it isn’t “losing a job opportunity for having said something insipid, misunderstood, poorly timed, or hateful”.)