The now-famous “Harper’s Letter” has made quite a splash among the online commentariat. The backlash to it is completely confined to professional outrage-mongers on Twitter. And even as this small number of people go through their tantrums and breakdowns, they are proving what the letter says in real-time.
The letter addresses a real phenomenon going on in workplaces, which is that “institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments.” In all, it’s an uncontroversial call for open debate, free expression, and discouragement of excessive reactions to apparently controversial opinions or statements.
And naturally, in response, we got a whole lot of excessive reactions.
Jennifer Finney Boylan was the first signatory to chicken out under pressure, claiming she hadn’t known the other signatories beforehand. (As if that should matter.) Kerri Greenidge said that she was requesting a retraction because she didn’t endorse the letter, even though she had signed it.
At Vox, writer Emily VanDerWerff claimed the letter is full of “anti-trans dog whistles.” There are no dog whistles in the letter, of course, but author J.K. Rowling was a signatory, and Rowling has recently given the controversial opinion that there is a difference between biological women and transgender women.
VanDerWerff claims she doesn’t want Matt Yglesias fired for signing because that would make her the villain. But her own letter to Vox says Yglesias signing the letter makes her “feel less safe,” which very clearly spells out the intention of her complaint. One could even call it a dog whistle.
Of course, people like VanDerWerff lash out over anodyne statements like those contained in the letter and simply move on to wait for the next outrage. They occasionally take a step back to bemoan the mean tweets they get as a result of their tantrums, as when Vox writer Aja Romano accused signatory Jesse Singal of harassment for asking for evidence that the letter was transphobic.
Meanwhile, people in the real world lose their jobs to the same Cancel Culture that these whiners deny exists. Your wife posts a racist picture online? Fired. You wrote 33 years ago that you don’t think women should serve in the military? Forced to resign. You tweeted out a study showing that riots turn off voters? Fired.
You’re a Hispanic electric worker cracking your knuckles? You’re actually a white supremacist, and now, you’re unemployed.
The Harper’s Letter was sadly necessary, and hopefully, the rest of those who saw its importance and signed on maintain their support. As we know and have seen time and time again, the backlash to this letter is not a thing to real, offline people; it doesn’t register outside of Twitter.
What you see in the fun house mirror is an illusion. Do not back down.
