After 11 years, Karen Attiah, a longtime author for “The Washington Publish,” says she’s been fired from the paper’s “Opinions” division for doing what she’s all the time performed: talking reality to energy.
In a Monday weblog put up, Attiah revealed she was let go after posting about political violence within the wake of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk’s taking pictures final week. She says she was penalized for “talking out in opposition to political violence, racial double requirements, and America’s apathy towards weapons.”
The Publish has but to touch upon her firing, however the publication has up to date her bio to replicate that she was a columnist.
Attiah didn’t title Kirk immediately in her posts, however she criticized what she known as “empty rhetoric” about denouncing violence with out motion. In a single put up, she wrote: “A part of what retains America so violent is the insistence that individuals carry out care, empty goodness and absolution for white males who espouse hatred and violence.”
When one commenter pressed her on whether or not her phrases have been too harsh, Attiah replied, “Refusing to tear my garments and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is… not the identical as violence.”
Based on Attiah, her bosses on the Publish accused her Bluesky commentary of being “unacceptable,” “gross misconduct” and even of “endangering the bodily security of colleagues.”
She flatly rejected the claims, writing: “My commentary obtained considerate engagement throughout platforms, assist, and nearly no public backlash. And but, the Publish accused my measured Bluesky posts of being ‘unacceptable’, ‘gross misconduct’ and of ‘endangering the bodily security of colleagues’ — costs with out proof, which I reject utterly as false. They rushed to fireside me with out even a dialog—claiming disparagement on race. This was not solely a hasty overreach, however a violation of the very requirements of journalistic equity and rigor the Publish claims to uphold.”
Attiah believes the firing is larger than her.
“I used to be the final remaining Black full-time opinion columnist on the Publish, in one of many nation’s most numerous areas. Washington D.C. not has a paper that displays the individuals it serves. What occurred to me is a part of a broader purge of Black voices from academia, enterprise, authorities, and media — a historic sample as harmful as it’s shameful — and tragic.”
Her departure comes because the Publish undergoes a significant shakeup in its Opinions division. Since Jeff Bezos introduced earlier this 12 months that the editorial board would shift to prioritize “private liberties and free markets,” many columnists have left or been pushed out.
However what’s taking place to Attiah is a part of a well-known playbook: Black girls who dare to name out white supremacy typically discover themselves punished for saying the quiet half out loud. Whether or not it’s professors being pushed out of universities, executives dropping their jobs, or journalists being silenced, Attiah’s firing underscores how establishments nonetheless bend underneath the load of conservative backlash, particularly when Black voices make individuals uncomfortable.
It additionally speaks to a chilling actuality: the Publish’s solely Black full-time opinion columnist is gone, leaving Washington D.C., one of many Blackest cities within the nation, with one much less voice that displays its group within the nation’s most notable pages.
In the meantime, conservative activists have been pressuring firms and establishments to punish individuals who spoke critically of Kirk after his demise, whether or not that meant firing them outright or forcing public apologies.
“I spoke out in opposition to hatred and violence in America — and it price me my job,” she wrote.
And with that, Attiah turns into the newest in a protracted historical past of Black truth-tellers who’ve paid a steep value for saying what America doesn’t wish to hear.
