OPEN LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
This morning, I received an email from you telling me that my reaction to “Trump’s Fights Are Their Fights. They Have His Back Unapologetically” was published in Comments. You will find that writing below. I have italicised it here to make it stand out here, in this. I did not italicize it when it was submitted. It was submitted acording to your rules and format.
Now, I am being told that the work — the comment — is unavailable. Unavailable is code for censorship. My point of view is not politically correct. I can only guess that my relationship to ANTIFA represents a well of disapproval for an organized resistance to the people and organizations that support Donald Trump.
Trump has already used violence against US. Most notably Portland. I went to Portland. I wrote about it. Violence was used against us in Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Kenosha, Washing, DC, and the list simply goes on from there. Multiple national guards armed with lethal force. You might censor us. That censorship will be ephemeral. How is it that we are not allowed to articulate how violence works and why.
You are not doing your job.
My argument with the New York Times is based on the totally outrageous interpretation of what is civil and what is not civil — how is it uncivil to publish a dialogue that attempts to paint a picture (which was very well-written and timely by your journalist) of Trump supporters without being able to respond in kind. That story does not stand by itself. There is CONTEXT. My work is that CONTEXT.
This is how censorship works. The point is not violence or ANTIFA. The point is that you post and then delete the posted comments that are not uncivil, but assume a voice that explains how another group of voices (ANTIFA) perceives the article you published on your front page.
How is it that we are not allowed to even HAVE a voice if we do not share your core values. You will not find ONE threat of violence in what is a resistance in my commentary. Not one. If you have a problem with my point of view, that is one thing, and fine by me, we do not have to always agree. But to ban my voice because of an association with resistance is like telling ACT UP to be hushed and silent. None of us were silent in ACT IP, and we won’t be shut down in ANTIFA just because you disagree with a voice.
My comments were respectful. I did not explode. I stated my case calmly. We need to have a dialogue in this country so as to confront the stereotype Americans have that suggests we are not valid, and we just do not count.
We count. And it doesn’t really matter that you are intolerant of any voice, any writing that does not fit cleanly into an existential box of political correctness. Obviously, I publish elsewhere. And will again. We are pushed into a corner.
The story featuring censorship spins on a dime where it now exemplifies how we are subject to a conflict — you publish me and then you take me down — translates to you are CONFLICTED, and inconsistent, and that is now a fundamental part of the story. A big part of the story is this relationship I have, whether you can silence me or acknowledge me or not, and I would suggest that censorship is patently absurd, even beneath contempt.
You publish it. Then, you unpublish it. Decide.
You have already decided. You have banished, not me, but my voice.
I ask you: how many of your writers went to riots where violence surfaced. Perhaps a few, but I do not believe it. How many writers went from riot to riot in order to document this place and this time of extraordinary change. I can say categorically, no writer at your paper went to every demonstration, every riot, and joined ANTIFA. The head of Homeland Security denies any military clad force was used against anyone. A military presence that has no identifying insignia anywhere in sight. They just pushed us into cars. The head of Homeland Security is lying and lying and lying. Where is the writing that covers that.
There is none.
I deeply regret the censorship you have now employed. It hides behind the shadows of the protection of the status quo. ANTIFI resists fascism. Simple and clear. And yet we are stereotyped as destruction itself. We are pushed and pushed and pushed by people who will not allow us to speak. What do you think happens when people are not allowed to speak, and specificaly to speak out.
Why is it that I smell editorial authority. I deal with editorial authority every single day, year after year after year. I know when I see it. It is usually thoughtless. It always supports the status quo of silence.
Please restore my comment. It would be greatly appreciated.
Respectfully,
Tim Barrus
It is not uncivil to say that Trump supporters are deplorable when you deplore them. It is politically incorrect to articulate the reality that these people have unleashed a reprehensible assault on the founding principles of democracy. The only real question is how can you live with them. I am with ANTIFA. Political correctness is grievously wretched. I do not care how incorrect I am. I learned my lessons in ACT UP. My neighbors support Trump. Although people have been dying in front of their eyes, they truly believe that there is no virus, and that media coverage of covid is fake news. This is what they have been told. They also believe in and are members of the KKK. This is the South. It gets worse. They are armed to the teeth. It is not uncivil for me to say that what I see on the horizon is another war, the kind of war that never really ended and mimics a culture war unfolding as we stand around bewildered about who is and who is not civil, nonviolent, and politically obsequious. How simplistic is it that ANTIFA resists fascism. How schematically facile is it to conclude that America clings to the kind of petrified panic where all these people see is threat after threat, and what they fail to see is that they are the threat they are so terror-stricken over. Is there anyone who can pretend we are not a violent culture. I’ve tried hard to understand these people as human. But their intransigence is alien to me. I have given up on them. They are not human beings.
“Your comment has been approved!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with The New York Times community.”
This is just another lie in a sea of them.