Hemal Jhaveri fired: USA Today ‘race and inclusion’ editor forced out of newspaper after claims of race baiting and general social media revolt following erroneous tweet regarding Boulder Colorado shooting.
Live by the sword, die by the sword ….
The editor of a major US newspaper has been fired after taking to Twitter earlier this week to comment on Monday’s Boulder Colorado shooting, only to erroneously accuse ‘angry white men’ of being behind most mass shootings before authorities had publicly identified the race of the shooter.
It was a mistake that has come to haunt USA Today ‘race and inclusion’ editor, Hemal Jhaveri who along with her employer, was accused of racism against whites following her controversial tweet: ‘It’s always and angry white man, always.’
Jhaveri’s comment was in response to Deadspin writer, Emily Julia DiCaro posting : ‘Extremely tired of people’s lives depending on whether a white man with an AR-15 is having a good day or not.’
Upon authorities revealing the shooter was actually Syrian born Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, Jhaveri hastily took down her tweet. But that may have been too little, too late.
The “Race and Inclusion Editor” at USA Today, Hemal Jhaveri, was fired after her race-baiting in the wake of the Boulder attack: “it’s always an angry white man” who commits mass shootings, she claimed.
Jhaveri has since alleged that she was let go for “challenging whiteness” 🤦 pic.twitter.com/vTLjAsieei
— D Alex (@D_Alex_connect) March 27, 2021
Accusations of race baiting at the hands of alt right
The missive led to some of Jhaveri’s 8,000-plus followers accusing her of racism, and her story receiving national airplay, including on conservative media outlet, Fox News.
Notwithstanding, Jhaveri’s comments also came off the back of her recent take of Oral Roberts University and its basketball team’s beliefs in which she heavily criticized. The post led to Jhaveri and USA Today being accused of, ‘spreading hate about ORU’s beliefs, Hemal is guilty of the very thing that she is condemning ORU for. Your paper can do better than this.’
Posted another commentator: ‘Hemal Jhaveri of USA Today called Christian beliefs archaic in a story about ORU. I noticed that she will not call Islam archaic or their Prophet Mohammed a homophobe. She and USA Today are staffed by cowards who know that Muslims will cut their heads off and post it on Twitter.’
Responding to the ‘woke forces’ that seemingly dominate media and cultural narratives, and sensing that their writer may have provoked too many of its readers and what others might think of the journal, USA Today in turn fired Jhaveri.
A firing that Jhaveri now believes was unjust.
‘I am no longer employed at USA TODAY, a company that was my work home for almost eight years,’ Jhaveri wrote on Medium on Friday.
‘On Monday night, I sent a tweet responding to the fact that mass shooters are most likely to be [W]hite men. It was a dashed off over-generalization, tweeted after pictures of the shooter being taken into custody surfaced online.
Outlets want ‘diverse voices,’ then get upset when those voices draw the ire of the very well-organized right wing outrage machine. https://t.co/8MOeOPaZNq
— Julie DiCaro wrote a book (@JulieDiCaro) March 26, 2021
“Like many places, USA TODAY values “equality and inclusion,” but only as long as it knows its rightful place, which is subservient to white authority.” Hemal Jhaveri’s letter is actually a reflection on the entire journalism industry.
— Chirag Wakaskar (@chiragwakaskar) March 27, 2021
Editor calls attention to USA Today previous acts
‘It was a careless error of [judgment], sent at a heated time, that doesn’t represent my commitment to racial equality. I regret sending it. I apologized and deleted the tweet.’
But there’s more.
Jhaveri in her post, went on to accuse her former employer and colleagues of having gotten away with far worse.
‘White USA TODAY reporters have been able to minimize racialized people in print, our white Editor-In-Chief was thoughtless about black face, and a senior politics editor (also white) showed disregard for journalistic ethics by hosting a taxpayer funded reception for Trump appointees’, she wrote.
‘All kept their jobs. Going outside of USA TODAY, there’s an even longer list of high-profile white journalists who stayed in their positions after accusations of sexual assault, using the n-word, and editorial negligence.
‘Sending one wrong tweet that ended up in the hands of Sean Hannity on Fox News though, was enough for this publication to turn tail.
“I am no longer working at USA TODAY. Here’s what happened.” | by Hemal Jhaveri
Short version? Rather than stand up for its journalist, @USATODAY fired a woman of color to satisfy white supremacist demands.
Racist is as racist does. https://t.co/dUcRoN2Veb
— M. E. Brown (@Botanicalsrock) March 26, 2021
Media serving diversity, equity and inclusion or vocal partisan groups?
Jhaveri said she was not shocked that her career at USA Today had ended in controversy – and said ‘the ire and anger of alt-right Twitter’ had played a part.
Isn’t the woke brigade the liberal left? Either way, Twitter has become the domain of the faceless echo chamber where one is free to accuse, slander, blame, implicate, or make inferences, irrespective of political or racial leanings.
Continued Jhaveri in her post: ‘I wish I were more surprised by it, but I’m not. Some part of me has been waiting for this to happen because I can’t do the work I do and write the columns I write without invoking the ire and anger of alt-right Twitter’,
‘There is always the threat that tweets which challenge white supremacy will be weaponized by bad faith actors. I had always hoped that when that moment inevitably came, USA TODAY would stand by me and my track record of speaking the truth about systemic racism.
‘That, obviously, did not happen.’
A spokesperson for Gannett, USA Today’s parent company, told Fox News that the paper was ‘founded on the basis of diversity, equity and inclusion’ and that ‘we hold our employees accountable to these principles both personally and professionally.’
Social media responds
‘While we can’t discuss personnel matters and don’t want to comment on the specifics of her statements on Medium, we firmly believe in and stand by our principles of diversity and inclusion,’ the spokesperson added.
And then there were these responses on social media, see what you think?
‘Based on facts reported here, I don’t think a reporter @hemjhaveri should be fired over one factually incorrect tweet with potentially racial overtones. We should stop moving immediately to the sanction of people losing their jobs for mis-steps.’
‘I agree! But people like Hemal Jhaveri would try to get you fired in a similar situation.’
‘Hemal had one job, failed to do it, made her title useless, made her employer look bad, takes blame but then said racism fired her.’
‘Not for firing someone if they admit they made an error and understand that what they said was foolish. Mr. Hemal Jhaveri refused to do so. That’s why he got fired. Not cancel culture.’
