âDidnât meanâ is fuzzy in this sort of case. Iâd put âhe expected a good number of readers would interpret the referent of âanimalsâ to be âblack peopleâ and was positive on that interpretation ending up in their mindsâ at more likely than not.
I think many people are tricking themselves into being more intellectually charitable to Hanania than warranted.
I know relatively little about Hanania other than stuff that has been brought to my attention through EA drama and some basic âknow thy enemyâ reading I did on my own initiative. I feel pretty comfortable in my current judgment that his statements on race are not entitled charitable readings in cases of ambiguity.
Hanania by his own admission was deeply involved in some of the most vilely racist corners of the internet. He knows what sorts of messages appeal to and mobilize those people, and how such racists would read his messages. He âknow[s] how it looksâ not just to left-wing people but to racists.
More recently, he has admitted that he harbors irrational animus (mostly anti-LGBT stuff from what I know) that seems like a much better explanation for his policy positions rather than any attempt at beneficence from egalitarian first principles. If you just read his recent policy stances on racial issues, they are shot through with an underlying contempt, lack of empathy, and broad-strokes painting that are all consistent with what I think can fairly be called a racist disposition towards Black people in particular.
Charitable interpretation of statements can be a sensible disposition in many settings. But giving charitable interpretations to people with this sort of history seems both morally and epistemically unwise.
The prior on âperson with a white supremacist history still engaged in right wing racial politics still has a racist underlying psychologyâ should be very high. Right-wing racists also frequently engage in dogwhistles to signal to each other while maintaining plausible deniability. Reading that statement (and others of his) with those priors+facts in mind, I feel very comfortable not giving Hanania any benefit of the doubt here.
Thereâs also a textual case that I think supports the racist reading. Woke people walking around âin suitsâ is not at all a common tropeâIâve literally never heard of someone talking about a woke person wearing a suit as some sort of significant indicator of anything. But racists judging Black people by what they wearâe.g., purporting to be willing to be nicer to Black people if only they dressed more appropriatelyâis a huge trope in American race discourse. This sort of congruence between racist tropes and Hananiaâs language similarly applies to âin subwaysâ and âanimals.â These are racist tropes consistently used about Black people, not woke people.
He explicitly said that he sent an emotional and unthinking tweet.
This seems to me like also what you do if youâre in an elaborate game of secretly communicating hate. I think a sensible prior is that more people are emotional and unthinking than playing an elaborate game, but I donât think his claims about his own intentions are strong evidence here.
Also, while âelaborate game of secretly communicating hateâ is a pretty weird and specific hypothesis, I think weâve also seen evidence from time to time that some people are very much doing it, so I donât think itâs unreasonable for people to suspect it (e.g. I think of the things Lee Atwater said about switching from being openly racist to covertly racist in US politics).
âDidnât meanâ is fuzzy in this sort of case. Iâd put âhe expected a good number of readers would interpret the referent of âanimalsâ to be âblack peopleâ and was positive on that interpretation ending up in their mindsâ at more likely than not.
Iâd bet against that but not confident
I think many people are tricking themselves into being more intellectually charitable to Hanania than warranted.
I know relatively little about Hanania other than stuff that has been brought to my attention through EA drama and some basic âknow thy enemyâ reading I did on my own initiative. I feel pretty comfortable in my current judgment that his statements on race are not entitled charitable readings in cases of ambiguity.
Hanania by his own admission was deeply involved in some of the most vilely racist corners of the internet. He knows what sorts of messages appeal to and mobilize those people, and how such racists would read his messages. He âknow[s] how it looksâ not just to left-wing people but to racists.
More recently, he has admitted that he harbors irrational animus (mostly anti-LGBT stuff from what I know) that seems like a much better explanation for his policy positions rather than any attempt at beneficence from egalitarian first principles. If you just read his recent policy stances on racial issues, they are shot through with an underlying contempt, lack of empathy, and broad-strokes painting that are all consistent with what I think can fairly be called a racist disposition towards Black people in particular.
Charitable interpretation of statements can be a sensible disposition in many settings. But giving charitable interpretations to people with this sort of history seems both morally and epistemically unwise.
The prior on âperson with a white supremacist history still engaged in right wing racial politics still has a racist underlying psychologyâ should be very high. Right-wing racists also frequently engage in dogwhistles to signal to each other while maintaining plausible deniability. Reading that statement (and others of his) with those priors+facts in mind, I feel very comfortable not giving Hanania any benefit of the doubt here.
Thereâs also a textual case that I think supports the racist reading. Woke people walking around âin suitsâ is not at all a common tropeâIâve literally never heard of someone talking about a woke person wearing a suit as some sort of significant indicator of anything. But racists judging Black people by what they wearâe.g., purporting to be willing to be nicer to Black people if only they dressed more appropriatelyâis a huge trope in American race discourse. This sort of congruence between racist tropes and Hananiaâs language similarly applies to âin subwaysâ and âanimals.â These are racist tropes consistently used about Black people, not woke people.
He explicitly said that he sent an emotional and unthinking tweet.
That seems much more likely than heâs playing an elaborate game of secretly communicating hate.
This seems to me like also what you do if youâre in an elaborate game of secretly communicating hate. I think a sensible prior is that more people are emotional and unthinking than playing an elaborate game, but I donât think his claims about his own intentions are strong evidence here.
Also, while âelaborate game of secretly communicating hateâ is a pretty weird and specific hypothesis, I think weâve also seen evidence from time to time that some people are very much doing it, so I donât think itâs unreasonable for people to suspect it (e.g. I think of the things Lee Atwater said about switching from being openly racist to covertly racist in US politics).