For context, Daniel Penny (white) killed Jordan Neely, a homeless black man, who had been shouting at penny on the subway. Hanania is generally supportive of harsher measures against crime and this tweet (and Hanania’s history) make it likely to me that he is describing black people as animals, rather than Penny, who wasn’t harassing someone in the subway or to my knowledge wearing a suit and who Hanania probably supports. This is a gross thing to say[1]. And if Hanania wanted to clarify it, he could, but hasn’t.
In Hanania’s defence, he hasn’t said anything this racist more recently. But that’s a low bar.
There is some kind of clarification here that we are all animals and that being an animal isn’t bad, but Hanania isn’t doing some “all people are animals and that’s good” bit, he’s probably being very racist.
He wasn’t referring to black people. I reached out to Hanania and this is what he said:
““These people” as in criminals and those who are apologists for crimes. A coalition of bad people who together destroy cities. Yes, I know how it looks. The Penny arrest made me emotional, and so it was an unthinking tweet in the moment.”
He also says it’s quoted in the Blocked and Reported podcast episode, but it’s behind a paywall and I can’t for the life of me get Substack to accept my card, so I can’t doublecheck. Would appreciate if anybody figured out how to do that and could verify.
I think generally though it’s easy to misunderstand people, and if people respond to clarify, you should believe what they say they meant to say, not your interpretation of what they said.
I recommend editing your comment to update it based on new information.
Signal boosting incorrect and damaging information about somebody is bad for discourse.
Hanania has said racist things last year
For context, Daniel Penny (white) killed Jordan Neely, a homeless black man, who had been shouting at penny on the subway. Hanania is generally supportive of harsher measures against crime and this tweet (and Hanania’s history) make it likely to me that he is describing black people as animals, rather than Penny, who wasn’t harassing someone in the subway or to my knowledge wearing a suit and who Hanania probably supports. This is a gross thing to say[1]. And if Hanania wanted to clarify it, he could, but hasn’t.
In Hanania’s defence, he hasn’t said anything this racist more recently. But that’s a low bar.
There is some kind of clarification here that we are all animals and that being an animal isn’t bad, but Hanania isn’t doing some “all people are animals and that’s good” bit, he’s probably being very racist.
I’d bet that he didn’t mean black people here.
Ah, that is a fair point!
He wasn’t referring to black people. I reached out to Hanania and this is what he said:
““These people” as in criminals and those who are apologists for crimes. A coalition of bad people who together destroy cities. Yes, I know how it looks. The Penny arrest made me emotional, and so it was an unthinking tweet in the moment.”
He also says it’s quoted in the Blocked and Reported podcast episode, but it’s behind a paywall and I can’t for the life of me get Substack to accept my card, so I can’t doublecheck. Would appreciate if anybody figured out how to do that and could verify.
I think generally though it’s easy to misunderstand people, and if people respond to clarify, you should believe what they say they meant to say, not your interpretation of what they said.
I recommend editing your comment to update it based on new information.
Signal boosting incorrect and damaging information about somebody is bad for discourse.