July 17, 2020

"I deleted a tweet that in retrospect was mean spirited. I’m mad at myself for commenting on someone’s looks..."

"... instead of their ideas, especially so because I didn’t realize their identity, which obviously could make my comment more hurtful," tweets Thomas Chatterton Williams, who wrote that "Letter on Justice and Open Debate" we were all talking about last week.

So what was the tweet? Whose looks did he disparage?

I don't think it's the "In the middle of nowhere expelling" tweet that became a meme, explored on Know Your Meme:
"In the Middle of Nowhere Expelling" refers to a tweet by Harper's columnist Thomas Chatterton Williams. In the tweet, he relays a story about "expelling" a person from his house because they insulted New York Times opinion writer Bari Weiss. Many parodied the tweet online as a phrasal template, replacing elements of the tweet with various other absurd situations....
Hilarious. Though he deleted that post too, it's not what I'm looking for. Whose looks did he take a shot at? I'll just take a shot at his looks — he reminds me of Pat Paulson and Taylor Mead...



... but I'm going to guess that his target was Robin DiAngelo, because that's someone he's been tweeting about substantively lately:

I think DiAngelo looks great in that picture. Just perfect for what she is and what she's purveying. So maybe it's someone else. Maybe Mary Trump? I tried to watch some of her interview with George Stephanopoulos and got a little absorbed in her looks...



I think it's good, if you're a writer, to have some lines about how a person looks, but I can certainly see pushing back your antagonists for talking about anybody's looks in a negative way. And there's a certain conventional etiquette that forbids speaking about looks, even in a positive way. Thomas Chatterton Williams wants to be a public intellectual, but he's showing how easy he is to push back. Stand your ground!

55 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

Make no mistake: I love Pat Paulson and Taylor Mead.

tim in vermont said...

I would vote for Pat Pualson in a heartbeat.

Jupiter said...

Note the pronoun he used was "their". Are you assuming that "their" means "her"?

Kai Akker said...

Very wrong to attack someone's ideas based on their looks. Stick to substance. SUBSTANCE. And, uh, hellooo, Stephen Hawking?

Plus, if your name is Thomas CHATTERTON Williams, what a glass house you inhabit! Why do you need to give us all three names? Esp when one is CHATTERTON!

CHATTERTON. Sheesh. Doofus. That's what it really is. Thomas DOOFUS Williams.

Rick said...

How many "white" people can really relate to earning up to $150,000 per month from one of their revenue streams?

How many people relate to "revenue streams" instead of a paycheck, much less "multiple"?

Sebastian said...

"And there's a certain conventional etiquette that forbids speaking about looks . . ."

of progs and some women.

Nonapod said...

And there's a certain conventional etiquette that forbids speaking about looks, even in a positive way. Thomas Chatterton Williams wants to be a public intellectual, but he's showing how easy he is to push back. Stand your ground!

I generally try to avoid getting into people's appearances, but I sometimes will mock the looks of a person who would presume to be above me socially, sort of "punching up" I guess. For example, more than a few of the people in the House and the Senate look like Jim Henson creations to me. For example, I wonder that there surely must be a puppeteer working Adam Schiff, with his bug eyes and tiny neck.

Kylos said...

He tweeted “You look interesting” to someone who was trolling him.
Screenshot of deleted tweet

Apparently, the person he tweeted that to is transgender.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

No one in the hot garbage D-hack press ever sits down with someone who writes a book on democratic corruption.

ever notice?

narciso said...

she should be shunned by all media, because of her mind arson, which isn't metaphorical

MikeR said...

"I think DiAngelo looks great in that picture. Just perfect for what she is and what she's purveying." Uh, maybe. If what she's purveying is witch-hunting.
With that hair, she doesn't look normal, but I guess she isn't.

Joe Smith said...

The huge Paulson poster is fantastic. Could anyone look more unenthusiastic?

Reminds me of Biden's Twitter avatar with the crooked mask.

rcocean said...

Mary Trump must be on the short side, since they show George S. and her in chairs with their legs showing. Usually Georgie Shrimpopolus - like little Chuckie Todd - hides his legs under a desk, so we don't see he's a midget compared to most of his guests.

As for her looks, well, she probably looked better at 20, but then don't we all?

traditionalguy said...

The Geneva Convention of Tweet War. It too is seldom honored except in the breach by posturing writers of dull memoirs.

daskol said...

He seems nice in an old-school Europhilic public intellectual/journalist way, what with his name coming from a British poet and living in Paris with his French wife and kids. But yeah, if he wants to engage in the WWE style area of US public debate, he needs to grow a pair. Excellent advice.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

It’s not good, if your a writer, to write about a person’s looks. It’s a convention, and a holdover from the days when people believed in phrenology, physiognomy, and similar pseudoscience, and when there was no photography, or when photography was less common and available.

Writers, fiction and nonfiction, would deduce character from facial expressions, which maybe was justifiable, but they were on shakier ground when describing a cruel mouth, a haughty chin, or eyebrows that betokened a generous spirit.

narciso said...

I don't get it he points how she's a paid grifter, doesn't add that she destroys people's livehoods,

Yancey Ward said...

Does DiAngelo ever feel any guilt that she is making all this money that should have been made by some non-white person?

Of course not.

Ann Althouse said...

"He tweeted “You look interesting” to someone who was trolling him. Screenshot of deleted tweet/ Apparently, the person he tweeted that to is transgender."

Thanks.

So minuscule!

LordSomber said...

"I think DiAngelo looks great in that picture. Just perfect for what she is and what she's purveying."

The grizzled hair and the scarf are the giveaway.

I call it the "Freedom-Do™."

https://pungeon.blogspot.com/2012/03/say-it-with-hair-freedom-means-letting.html

(Sorry for the self-plug)

wild chicken said...

So, Fred Trump was like nearly every other successful, driven businessman. Like every owner I ever worked for.

Jesus Christ. If you don't like guys like that then give them a wide berth.

Sounds like Donald knew how to make the most of him, while Bubba sat in the corner and pouted.

Kylos said...

You’d think, but he’s now triggered the activists and has confirmed their suspicions that the letter was really about defending transphobia.

Nonapod said...

In this case "interesting" is doubleplus wrongspeak. In Twitter court, a cis male saying virtually anything at all about a transgender person's appearence (other than perhaps describing it as "brave" or "fearless") is grounds for an immediate cancellation. The punishment is a doxxing so that their real lives can be thoroughly destroyed.

Kylos said...

I should say, confirmed to them. When you’re looking for it, it’s never hard to find something to offend.

bagoh20 said...

How many people have stood their ground lately other than the dumb destroyers, who really have noting else but moxie going for them. The reason we are in the age of "that's not funny" and "obey" is that we are in the age of cowardice. Half the people are that kid that will wish you into the cornfield, and the other half are his parents cowering from him.

bagoh20 said...

The thing about triggers is they are designed specifically to be activated with the tiniest of force - one finger at most. Usually after the first pull it gets much easier.

Darkisland said...

At up to $15,000 per session and multiple sessions per week I would certaily say that anti-bias training works.

For Ms DeAngelo at least.

People that have to attend the sessions probably not so much.

John Henry

Howard said...

Trump women, including Mary, have that unfortunate trannie look. It's so ingrained, Donald marries cis-trannie impersonators. Oedipussy

Temujin said...

Funny. Over the past week when I kept seeing that same photo of Robin DiAngelo I was thinking she looks so stereotypical of a lifetime academic who had morphed into a 'sage' for the Left. A caricature of what I would expect a lefty woman who is really into her faith to look like. Requisite curly, almost ethnic hair parted in the middle, large framed glasses with that added touch of tint, and the must-have accessory: a scarf. All dark colors- grey, black, even the hair (which does allow for some natural streaks of white- but only to highlight). And importantly, she's not smiling. Can't have that. She's serious. And you should be too. Or else.

Static Ping said...

I presume it would not be DiAngelo, since her entire grift is judging people on how they look.

robother said...

So, was his crime speech to say "interesting"? Or was he using "you" in the singular, rather than plural? (Twitterati can sense this.)

Public intellectual, or chattering class, you make the call.

bagoh20 said...

I like how Mary Trump in that interview starts out by attacking her father for using other people in the family to get ahead. Yea, she thinks that's terrible. Says it makes you a psychopath. So, you have to excuse her appearance. She obviously doesn't know how to use a mirror.

n.n said...

Diversity is the modern standard of etiquette. He should reconsider kneeling until that changes.

tim in vermont said...

Pretty women have the most privilege as a group of anybody living, so I can’t blame her for capitalizing on her photogenic good looks. People listen to them not mattering what nonsense spills forth from those well formed lips and perfect teeth. Crack could tell you all about it.

Richard Dolan said...

"And there's a certain conventional etiquette that forbids speaking about looks ..."

Strange but true. It's got a long history too. Victorian, Puritan, Albigensian, Manichean. The body is the source of all evil, don't pay any attention to it, above all don't glorify it or revel in its pleasures. All that matters is Spirit. Close your eyes and focus on that! All that physicality is disgusting, I know, but lay back and do it for England!

As if anyone actually lives that way -- other than the oddball monk or flagelante, there aren't too many true-blue ascetics around. Who doesn't notice attractiveness in whatever your notion of a love-partner might be? But to say anything about it is an affront against all the -isms, the epitome of Violence itself. What happened to the Age of Aquarius -- it had such a short run.

And with that revival of the manichean perspective comes so much of post-modernism, in many ways just a throw-back to a medieval worldview. Forget the individual, what matters is the estate into which you were born -- not royal, noble or common anymore, but today, class, gender and race. And happily, it comes complete with an updated version of the Inquisition. Silence is violence, you will kiss the cross and confess the True Faith.

Lovely.

Kai Akker said...

--Apparently, the person he tweeted that to is transgender.

Needless to say, Game Over.

Chatterton's teeth must be chattering nonstop today. The end of the line for CHATTERTON.

Birkel said...

I love the way she looks too.
Every hectoring shrew should look like a hectoring shrew.

"You have frightened me several times tonight, but never in the way the servants of the Enemy would, or so I imagine. I think one of his spies would—well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand."
-- Frodo commenting about Strider

Gk1 said...

Love me some Pat Paulson. His short lived tv show is on the SHOUT streaming channel now. It is amazing how controversial and edgy he was seen at the time for having the temerity of running as a Presidential candidate when Nixon and Hubert Humphrey were running at the same time.

PB said...

She's just a different kind of race hustler.

Kai Akker said...

Someone else must have looked up Thomas Chatterton. He was a poet. Sort of. He used a different name, a historical figure, and he sent his verses attributed to that name (Rowley, as it happens) to people he hoped would elevate him. Instead it polluted their historical research and caused Chatterton -- then still a teenager -- to be SNUBBED BY WALPOLE!

He committed suicide at age 17. So this is the figure Thomas Chatterton Williams's parents named him after.

A solution presents itself. Use a more recognizable poet's name. Thomas Dylan Thomas Williams. He can just go by Thomas Dylan Williams. Or maybe Thomas Dylan Thomas. Or Williams Thomas Dylan.

And with cancellation looming, he might want to make rapid use of one (or all) of those suggestions. Humbly submitted for his consideration.

stevew said...

Peddling racism and white guilt is highly remunerative. I couldn't get away with it.

n.n said...

She's just a different kind of race hustler.

A diversitist for profit and leverage.

n.n said...

--Apparently, the person he tweeted that to is transgender.

Homosexual, bisexual, crossgender, neogender?

William said...

There's something troubled and troubling about Mary's looks. She looks like she studied psychology not in search of wisdom but in search of sanity....Fortunately, she's dumping on Donald so no one will mock her looks. John Goodman won't portray her on a SNL sketch...I guess it's easier to mock good looking Republican women. Kayleigh is a Barbie. It was killing them, but they never actually made fun of Sarah Sanders weight, just her eyeliner. It sort of hung in the air though. They had the most fun with Sean Spicer. If you're a white,male Republican, it's Katie bar the door when it comes to mockery.

tim in vermont said...

"She looks like she studied psychology not in search of wisdom but in search of sanity.”

Like so many others. Just like a lot of people become cops because they still want to have the same kind of fun, but not go to jail for it.

Freeman Hunt said...

Criticizing looks is a trap. If you're bad-looking, you're assumed jealous. If you're good-looking, you're thought a cold-hearted bastard.

walter said...

"I think DiAngelo looks great in that picture. Just perfect for what she is and what she's purveying."
--
All that headroom....

Amadeus 48 said...

I'm in the middle of nowhere in Lincoln Park on the near north side of Chicago, and I just expelled from my house a friend of a friend who wanted to tell me what a genius Barack Obama is. That was bad enough, but then the SOB put ketchup on a hot dog. That was it. We have to go through this stupid lockdown, and this POS wants to bore me to death about friggin' Obama, and then he puts ketchup on a dog. They'll do that for you down the street at the Dog House, but it is called a Rod Blagojevich, and they pipe in a fart sound if you order it.

Static Ping said...

DiAngelo's picture is disturbing. She looks like she's not all there, as if something is off. It's the sort of look that you see with someone with particular mental disorders, like she has some variety of autism. She may not be like that normally - I don't know - but the idea that this was a picture selected to reflect her does not bode well.

Valentine Smith said...

It really is a uniform isn't it? Helmet-like hair in camouflage gray, a cashmere Spanish rough for the sagging neck. Yes she is prepared for battle. There are millions of her on the upper west side and hundreds of thousands more in park slope. Who would think such a dim looking thing would be such a racist!

Rosalyn C. said...

I don't know about Mary's story about her father's death. She focuses on the strange conversation she had with her grandfather who called to break the news something was up. Clearly he did not want to break the news to her, assumed correctly that her mother would. Why not give her mother a break and call first thing in the morning? Her father was dead anyway.

Yes, it was obviously a dysfunctional family. But she was 16 at the time of her father's death. And yet she didn't know her father was in the hospital? Why would her grandfather be responsible to inform her or make sure she be present at her father's illness/passing? Why didn't her mother tell her and why wasn't her mother there and why does Mary blame all that on Fred Trump, Sr.? And now by extension, Donald Trump. But you know she's cashing in, that's all.

As far as Donald is concerned, Mary claims he is only motivated by money because that's how he was formed by his father. So why would Donald even bother running and serving as President? For the money? If he were the sociopath she claims he would definitely not be running for a second term. The only Trump who is putting money above the feelings of others and embarrassing her family is Mary.

Maybe one possible positive: white privilege ain't all it's cracked up to be.

PubliusFlavius said...

Stephanopoulos looks....

and....sounds...like

A vampiric director who hasn't realized his casting couch fantasy.

walter said...

So she's turning away royalties then, right?

Danno said...

I think DiAngelo looks great in that picture. Just perfect for what she is and what she's purveying.

Pasty pale white skin and black and varying shades of gray for her duds. Not my idea of great.

KellyM said...

"How many "white" people can really relate to earning up to $150,000 per month from one of their revenue streams?"

Funny, but not really. Glad to see that "white" was originally placed in scare quotes, because despite Ms. DiAngelo's last name, she's Jewish, not white.