Prominent Black journalist Karen Attiah has revealed she was fired by The Washington Post over social media posts she wrote following the shooting death of conservative activist and influencer, Charlie Kirk.
Attiah published a Substack newsletter on Monday, Sept. 15, saying she was terminated from her job as an opinion editor at the paper for “speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns.”
As a columnist, Attiah noted that she was expected to “defend freedom and democracy.” But said, she was “being silenced” for doing those very things. Still, she said: “My pen and my teaching will not be silenced. If anything, my voice will be sharper now.”
After 11 years at the paper, she said she came under scrutiny for a string of posts she shared on the Bluesky platform Sept. 10, the day Kirk was fatally shot while speaking to students at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Attiah wrote in one Bluesky post, “I wish I had hope for gun control and that I could believe ‘political violence has no place in this country.’ But we live in a country that accepts white children being massacred by gun violence. Not just accepts, but worships violence.”
She brought attention to other politically-motivated shootings, and said nothing changed. Instead she noted, “America shrugged and moved on.”
She also posted that Kirk previously said: “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot.”
Kirk, who co-founded Turning Point USA, made the remark in 2023 on “The Charlie Kirk Show.”
His full comment was: “If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. But now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us, ‘I’m only here because of affirmative action.’ Yeah, we know, you do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
Attiah said her Bluesky writings were “measured.” But The Post countered that they were “unacceptable” and “gross misconduct.”
The paper lists a very lengthy social media policy on its website.
Journalist Oliver Darcy published Attiah’s termination letter in his private Status newsletter, which was shared in part by Mediaite.
The letter was dated Sept. 11, and said Attiah’s Bluesky writings “violate The Post’s social media policies, harm the integrity of our organization, and potentially endanger the physical safety of our staff.”
The letter quoted one Bluesky post in particular that read: “Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is….not the same as violence.”
Attiah is far from the only African-American public figure to say Kirk used his platforms to disparage Black people.
Comedian D.L. Hughley said on Don Lemon’s podcast last week, “The very last words he spoke were putting the onus of gun violence on gangs, which is synonymous with Black people. The very way he died was lying about Black people with his last breath.”
Author, actor and activist Tariq Nasheed posted on the X platform: “Charlie Kirk goes around to campuses talking about how violent Black people are… His social media timeline goes on and on about how violent Black people are… And in the middle of his speech discussing Black gang violence, Charlie gets shot by a WHITE man?”
Former Insecure actress Amanda Seales shared her thoughts about Kirk in an Instagram Live session. “I can’t have empathy for someone like Charlie Kirk. First of all, Charlie Kirk don’t believe in empathy. He said it’s a bad thing. He said it’s some ‘new-age made-up s–t,'” Seales said before being told Kirk was declared deceased. “That man got murdered at 31 at a college event in the middle of a sentence talking about Black gangs. What a way to go.”
Attiah’s ouster followed the firing of MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd, who was let go from the network last week after he told viewers Kirk said “awful words” and in turn, “awful actions” took place.
“He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions,” Dowd said during MSNBC’s live coverage of the shooting.
“You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in,” he added.
Conservatives expressed outrage on social media. In response, MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler issued an apology calling Dowd’s comments “inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable.”
Discover more from Urban Hollywood 411
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
