‘Dumb white people’: Another NYT editor under fire after questionable old tweets resurface

As the New York Times continues its pivot to race-focused coverage, more arguably racist and anti-Semitic tweets by an editor have come to light — just weeks after another employee apologized for “offensive” past comments.

Breitbart uncovered the “racially offensive” tweets blasting “dumb white people” which were posted between 2014 and 2017 by Jazmine Hughes, an associate editor of the New York Times Magazine. 

In one of the tweets, Hughes jokes that she might tell a store cashier to have a nice day “even though you white.” In another, she attributes decreased stress in her life to a decision she made to stop “paying attention to dumb white people.”

In the era of “cancel culture,” it’s unlikely that tweets joking about not liking black cashiers or targeting “dumb black people” would fly, but Hughes’ old tweets are still visible on her profile. No one has forced her to apologize yet — and neither she, nor the Times itself, have addressed the issue publicly.

In another tweet, Hughes credits black actress Viola Davis and her natural hair for having to spend less time trying “to explain gravity and curls to a dumb white person.” Before that, posting a picture of her white boyfriend, Hughes wrote that dating white people is “a rich tapestry of somehow making fun of them for everything they do.”

The tweets in question from the NYT editor are not just relating to daily frustrations and interactions with white people, either. Some of them are overtly political. 

Following the 2016 presidential election, Hughes also slams white people — but particularly “white women” — for helping to elect Donald Trump. In a since-deleted tweet, she also referred to Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky as America’s “only good white woman.”

It’s not the first time the NYT has hired a person who mocks “dumb white people” to its ranks. The newspaper hired tech journalist Sarah Jeong last year, prompting critics to point out that the journalist had a history of mocking “dumbass f*cking white people!” On that occasion, the Times stood by the hire, but said it did “not condone” her comments.

On the charge of anti-Semitism, Hughes’ tweets seem to be less offensive, joking on one occasion with Jewish podcast producer Jenna Weiss-Berman that Jews are “good with money” — a common anti-Semitic trope. In another tweet, she asked who is “Beth Israel” and “how does she have so many hospitals?” Beth Israel is Hebrew for “House of Israel” and there are a number of Beth Israel hospitals and medical centers across the US.

Breitbart also notes that Hughes played a major role in the paper’s recent and controversial 1619 Project — which was appluaded by liberals, but which some conservatives argued was “rewriting” history in claiming that slavery shaped modern America more than anything else. The project came shortly after editor Dean Baquet admitted in a leaked recording that the paper would be switching its focus from coverage of Trump and Russia to Trump and racism instead.

Hughes’ newly uncovered tweets will no doubt cause another headache for the Times, coming just a few weeks after senior staff editor Tom Wright-Piersanti was forced to apologize for past tweets mocking Native Americans, Asians and Jews.

Before Wright-Piersanti caught the spotlight, the Times had already demoted its deputy Washington editor over “serious lapses in judgement” for tweets that some deemed racist.

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