Discussion for article #227947
we as editors weren’t sensitive enough to the language being used.
And, what, exactly, would you say your fucking job is?
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Stanley may not have intended to be condescending and racially insensitive, but the profile is such a badly-written little farrago that it is all but impossible to draw any positive conclusion from it.
And it’s apparent that the NYT needs to hire some competent editors.
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Of course you didn’t intend to offend anyone. That’s beside the point.
Also? Shonda Rhimes is not the producer of the Viola Davis show. The piece was condescending, insensitive and with a whopping huge error in it that calls into question Stanley’s entire premise.
Heckuva job, NYTimes!
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I sat down with the paper yesterday and stumbled upon this story and had the exact same thoughts - WTF was this person thinking? I have a theory about these sorts of things when they happen. The NY Times is a hugely political enterprise with super smart type A personalities everywhere, driven New Yorkers all with a chip on their shoulders and knives out for all kinds of people. I submit that for whatever reason Alessadra was not liked by the higher ups, and someone intentionally let this slip through so that Alessandra could be more easily fired.
Why else would they let something so obvious be printed in the SUNDAY paper, the most widely read edition of the most widely read newspaper??? These people don’t let things get printed that they don’t want printed.
So we, the paying readers, were probably used as part of the politics of the NY Times.
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I’m afraid you miss the point: the NYT has a long history of bashing women; i.e., it’s part of their DNA I first noticed it with Chappaquiddick, but even then others were saying that it was long established.
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Maybe. I doubt it, though. Stanley has been writing factually incorrect columns for years at this point. Someone likes her.
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Isn’t this exactly the “culture” of Dean! His arrogance and nastiness is very obvious! Probably why he was kicked out of the LA Times!
Actually, as I understand it, Rhimes IS one of the producers of “How To Get Away With Murder,” but NOT the creator – as Stanley’s piece implied. The creator is a white guy whom Rhimes previously hired as a writer on “Grey’s Anatomy.”
My comment was about the story in question.
\I made no reference to past behavior by the NYT.
So,no, I did not miss the point.
You inserted a different narrative, which missed the point.
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Yeah, I mean I’m totally spinning conspiracy theories here but…while I’m at it…if someone likes her on the staff all the more reason to require a public humiliation for her to get her fired.
Ehh, yes. My bad. I meant creator.
Bleh.
Monday.
I agree with Sullivan. The entire piece was condescending and backhanded.
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I read the piece and whether or not she meant to offend anyone, the piece was patently offensive. The whole tone was cringe worthy, as though written by some over privileged know-it-all white girl who thinks she understands the African American community because of that one black studies class she took at Smith in 1994. The fact that Stanley keeps trying to defend it, makes the situation even worse. Stop defending this, Alessandra, and just give a full apology.
She’s sorry if anyone was offended.
Christ, I think Diogenes would find that honest man before we find someone who’s willing to say “I’m sorry I wrote/said something that was offensive and I am engaging in some serious introspection about where, inside myself, that might have come from.”
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So Viola Davis is “less classically beautiful” than Kerry Washington?
Not to worry, Anglo-America…
You are not the only folks who wedge away from darker people in handing out the beauty awards.
Any Anglo-American checking out the “Novelas” viewed by Latinos (very avidly, I might add) would be struck by the spectacle of a Caribbean mulatto Puerto Rican or a Mexican Mestizo of Aztec heritage both watching a Novela with intense identification. The actors in the Novela? Well, I’ll put it this way… I spent seven years in Germany after WWII. Just about all of the Germans with whom I interacted could have said, “These folks look like my relatives”.
You know what? a provocative lede that isn’t grossly insensitive really isn’t that hard to write.
Or edit.
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I just read an editorial that stated (by some bogus scientist) that planting trees is creating climate change heating of the planet. And the NYT printed this on their editorial page. What - in God’s name - has happened to the NYTimes.
Whatevs. There are like 2, maybe 3, decent television shows in existence and these ones certainly ain’t them. Was it in bad taste? Probably (although, let me write ledes for a week in several major newspapers and I’ll show you how bad it could really get). Is it the foot-stomping outrage justification it’s been treated as? Nope. People are going to make honest missteps trying to be edgy or trying to address difficult substantive issues. Sure, there’s obviously some cause for an apology or a mea culpa here, but I think it’s been a bit overblown.
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Epistemic closure. All those really smart people at the Times (and places like the Times) don’t get out much. And when they do, they listen to the Little People around them only in the way that a particularly august old-school anthropologist would do fieldwork