It’s Time to Fire Joy Reid
Recently MSNBC host Joy Reid came under fire for homophobic blog posts that were unearthed by Twitter user @Jamie_Maz. The posts themselves are pretty damning, as Reid shows distaste for LGBTQ rights such as marriage equality, and even derision for the critically acclaimed film Brokeback Mountain “Pretty Cowboys in Love, or Last Gasp of Gay Chic?” because ew, gross, gay people. Among other things found in the blog were homophobic articles with titles such as “the top 5 so totally not gay Republicans of 2006”, with number 5 being Karl Rove, who is referred to as “Miss Piggy”. I’m no fan of Karl Rove, but this seems in incredibly poor taste. These types of blog posts would be more commonly seen on extreme right winger sites like The Blaze or Breitbart, rather than from someone who claims to be a progressive.
This is not the first time Reid has come under fire for old blog posts of a homophobic nature. The pundit found herself in hot water last winter for the very same reason by the same Twitter user. Reid ended up apologizing for her past bigotry and the matter was more or less forgotten.
Here We Go Again
Now Reid once more has found herself up shit creek, with nary a paddle in sight. This time rather than apologize, she chose to double down, that is, she hired a “cyber security expert” to claim that the posts were the work of hackers tampering with The Reid Report, her now defunct and widely deleted blog. Reid herself made the following statement to Mediaite, claiming an “external party accessed and manipulated material from my now-defunct blog, The Reid Report, to include offensive and hateful references that are fabricated and run counter to my personal beliefs and ideology.” The Internet Archive was of course able to quickly debunk the claims made by Reid and her “security expert”.
It’s Time to Fire Joy Reid
While it’s fun to mock the idea of time traveling hackers, I would prefer to focus on the lie. The question on my mind is why. Why would she do this now? Why not apologize like she did last winter? That would at least be forgivable. Instead, she is holding onto the lie as a dog would a hold onto a worn out chew toy that should have been thrown away weeks ago. For fuck’s sake the FBI is even getting involved now. Just take the L, Joy. Full disclosure, as an individual who identifies as LGBTQ, I find all of her actions reprehensible, and I think that she should be fired immediately.
There are so many reasons to fire Joy Reid. My reasons stem from far more than her homophobic blog posts from more than a decade ago, as problematic as they are. Anyone who has been an active Twitter user for the last several years may remember the many transphobic comments that Joy Reid has made about whistleblower turned activist and candidate for office Chelsea Manning. For instance, look at this rather bizarre rant that Reid went on about Manning only last July.
As anyone who looks at this deranged collection of tweets can surmise, Reid is blaming Manning’s pre transition gender-based dysmorphia for her whistleblowing actions. There are two pretty unforgivable things about her actions. First, there’s the fact that Reid claims Manning committed a crime, rather than an act of heroism in exposing the degeneracy of the American military industrial complex. Second, she seems to be drawing a correlation between criminality and body dysmorphia. This should tell you everything you need to know about the principles of Joy Reid. She is no ally.
Of course, when one looks at the principles of Joy Reid, one cannot help but note the same set of principles (or lack thereof) in her diehard defenders. This is evident in the comments made on this Facebook post back in 2015 with regard to Chelsea Manning’s gender reassignment surgery; one commenter misgenders Manning, another calls her a “looser”. It’s difficult to tell the difference between the conservatives and the liberals in those comments. It’s no surprise to see the same people carrying water for this bigot on Twitter the last few days. This should show the LGBTQ community once and for all that liberals are not our friends, unless of course we happen to be at the same brunch.
While the above tweet is not transphobic, as Manning would not come out as trans for two more years, one should note the complete disregard for what Manning was being subjected to at the time. Yes Joy, we know prison is meant to be unpleasant; that doesn’t make it right. Here, Joy is essentially siding with the war criminals. Do these seem like the words of someone who claims to be a progressive? If I were unfamiliar with Joy Reid, I would think she hosted a show on Fox News (which is maybe a more fitting place for her).
It’s Time to Hold MSNBC’s Feet to the Fire
MSNBC has so far decided to side with Joy in this matter, even though she has been proven to be a liar and bigoted against the LGBTQ community. Reid is seeing some consequences from her actions. PFLAG decided to rescind its Straight for Equality in Media award from Reid. This is fitting seeing as how she can no longer be considered an ally. The Daily Beast announced yesterday that they were putting Joy’s column “on pause”. Last night David Shuster tweeted that NBC management was considering firing her, and that “several talent have also argued the Reid controversies aren’t worth a weekend show whose ratings are ‘less than spectacular’.” Ouch.
It’s time to make a decision MSNBC. Is Reid really worth keeping around? I know your network loves its conspiracy theories about hacking, but do you really want to deal with the fallback that will come from an FBI investigation? Show a spine for once. Do the right thing. Fire Joy Reid.
