Some of you may have witnessed the ugliness that ensued yesterday after labor reporter Mike Elk posted — and then deleted — a pro- “due process” tweet that juxtaposed Woody Allen and Emmett Till.
I’m not interested in constructing a blow-by-blow account of what happened next — it’s pretty much all still there on Twitter, if you care to look. But this morning Elk sent me and a few other people a long letter about what happened, and asked me to reply. Part of my response was private, but I don’t think there’s any reason to treat the rest of it as a privileged communication.
I’m posting the excerpt that follows not to embarrass Elk further (I hope it won’t, and I don’t think it will), but because these kinds of social media blowups follow a pretty predictable pattern, and I think it’s in everyone’s interest to nip them in the bud while there’s still time. So read it if you like, and if any of it seems like it might be of use in the future, bookmark it somewhere you’ll be able to find it.
Mike,
You keep returning to the fact that you apologized for your initial comments about Till, but you haven’t acknowledged the fact that many people felt — as I did, and do — that those apologies misrepresented the criticism you received. You don’t have to agree with your critics, but if your apology is based on an understanding of your behavior that they disagree with, and that they’ve told you they disagree with, it’s not unfair or churlish or dishonest for them to discount that apology. It’s merely a reflection of the fact that the gulf between you has not yet been mended.
You’re angry and frustrated that the arguments you were trying to make about child abuse and the benefit of the doubt have gotten lost in the