Woke is hell

The old left was notorious for internal feuding. These feuds were usually about ideology — Trotskyite tendencies, for example — and sex — who was sleeping with whom.

These days, the woke left is plagued by feuds, but the issues are somewhat different. The feuding seems to revolve mainly around questions of “privilege.” Sex is still in the picture, sort of, but the question now is who is sexually harassing whom.

Consider the recent drama at the Washington Post. It kicked off when reporter Dave Weigel retweeted a sexist joke. His colleague, Felicia Sonmez, slammed Weigel, and the Post suspended him without pay for a month.

I’m no fan of Weigel, either as a person or a reporter, but his punishment seemed disproportionate to the “crime,” inasmuch as he promptly apologized for his retweet and took it down. But the Post’s response should have satisfied Sonmez.

People like Sonmez are never satisfied, though. It’s impossible to calm them down.

Indeed, Sonmez had been feuding with the Post for some time. Last year, she sued the paper and some of its editors for alleged discrimination and retaliation. As I explained here, Sonmez’s suit was frivolous. A court dismissed it.

Against this background, Sonmez continued to rant. She was “triggered” by a male reporter who told her publicly, “Felicia, we all mess up from time to time” and “engaging in repeated and targeted public harassment of a colleague is neither a good look nor is it particularly effective.”

Sonmez attacked this reporter for his “virtiol” and asked the Post’s executive editor, Sally Buzbee, what she thought. Buzbee sent a memo to all staff stating:

We expect the staff to treat each other with respect and kindness both in the newsroom and online. We are a collegial and creative newsroom doing an astonishing amount of important and groundbreaking journalism. One of the great strengths of our newsroom is our collaborative spirit.

The Washington Post is committed to an inclusive and respectful environment free of harassment, discrimination or bias of any sort.

When issues arise, please raise them with leadership or human resources and we will address them promptly and firmly.

Sonmez interpreted this anodyne statement as “fodder” for “more harassment.” And when a group of high-profile Post reporters defended Buzbee and the paper, Sonmez lashed out against them using the language of identity politics and “privilege”:

They are all white - They are among the highest-paid employees in the newsroom, making double and even triple what some other National desk reporters are making, particularly journalists of color - They are among the “stars” who “get away with murder” on social media.

The Post finally had had enough. It fired Sonmez who, I suspect, was spoiling for another court battle against the paper.

This affair at the Post holds interest in itself as a spectacle. It holds significance because it typifies what’s happening at woke-left outposts throughout America.

The woke are eating their own and gnawing away at their institutions.

Ryan Grim documents the phenomenon in this report for The Intercept (via John Sexton at Hot Air). His article is subtitled “Meltdowns have brought progressive advocacy groups to a standstill at a critical moment in world history.” (One should forgive the hyperbole of the last seven words, given the value of Grim’s reporting in support of the first nine.)

Organizations Grim identifies as plagued by feuding over identity politics include the ACLU, the Sierra Club, the Guttmacher Institute (a leading research group for the abortion rights movement), Demos, The Color of Change, the Movement for Black Lives, Human Rights Campaign, Time’s Up, the Sunrise Movement, Planned Parenthood, and NARAL Pro-Choice America.

One theme of Grim’s rich article is the way employees have tried to seize on “reckonings” — racial and otherwise — to improve their status within organizations. When the head of the Guttmacher Institute addressed employees about George Floyd’s death, she was met with complaints of allegedly unfair treatment of her employees:

“I’m here to talk about George Floyd and the other African American men who have been beaten up by society,” she told her staff, not “workplace problems.” [She] told them she was “disappointed,” that they were being “self-centered.” The staff was appalled. . . .

Of course. But when staff complaints of workplace abuse and discrimination were investigated, they were found to be without merit. Instead, “what we saw was distrust, disagreement, and discontent with management decisions they simply did not like.”

Also known as whining.

Constant employee whining can sap an organization, especially if it’s couched in terms of the identity politics so near-and-dear to the contemporary left. That’s what seems to be happening throughout left-world:

“To be honest with you, this is the biggest problem on the left over the last six years,” one [leader] concluded. “This is so big. And it’s like abuse in the family — it’s the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. . . .

“So much energy has been devoted to the internal strife and internal bullshit that it’s had a real impact on the ability for groups to deliver,” said one organization leader who departed his position. “It’s been huge, particularly over the last year and a half or so, the ability for groups to focus on their mission, whether it’s reproductive justice, or jobs, or fighting climate change.”

“My last nine months, I was spending 90 to 95 percent of my time on internal strife. Whereas [before] that would have been 25-30 percent tops,” the former executive director said. He added that the same portion of his deputies’ time was similarly spent on internal reckonings.

There is also this from a senior leader of another organization:

I got to a point like three years ago where I had a crisis of faith, like, I don’t even know, most of these spaces on the left are just not — they’re not healthy. Like all these people are just not — they’re not doing well,” he said.

“The dynamic, the toxic dynamic of whatever you want to call it — callout culture, cancel culture, whatever — is creating this really intense thing, and no one is able to acknowledge it, no one’s able to talk about it, no one’s able to say how bad it is.”

I guess not. But the Felicity Sonmez affair has provided a glimpse.