Karen Attiah isn't much of a writer. But as far as fulfilling her mission at the Washington Post to be a racial bomb-thrower, she succeeded.
But Attiah threw a bomb at Charlie Kirk supporters in the aftermath of his assassination, and the Post fired her for it. She stated that refusing to engage in "performative mourning" for someone who espoused violence "was not violence itself," among other choice morsels of hate.
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.
— Karen Attiah (@karenattiah.bsky.social) September 10, 2025 at 3:57 PM
The Post leadership determined her posts violated the publication's social media guidelines and harmed its journalistic integrity.
The Post also accused Attiah of "gross misconduct" and said her comments could create security risks for the newsroom and its staff.
“I used my voice to defend freedom and democracy, challenge power and reflect on culture and politics with honesty and conviction. Now, I am the one being silenced — for doing my job," she whined on her Substack after getting canned.
Attiah misquoted Kirk in a Bluesky entry, claiming it was racist to question affirmative action. On his show, Kirk referred to Michelle Obama, Joy Reid, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and former Representative Sheila Jackson Lee as DEI hires: "You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken seriously," Kirk said. Kirk can call any individual or several individuals he wants "stupid" or lacking "brain processing power." It's only racist to someone specifically hired to call white people "racist."
Someone like Karen Attiah.
She quoted Kirk on her Bluesky account as saying, "Black women do not have the brain processing power…" Kirk's comment is directed at specific individuals. Attiah's misquote brands Kirk as a racist for including "Black women" in general. But it's perfectly acceptable in left-wing circles because everyone knows that Kirk was actually referring to all black women.
Attiah filed a grievance with an arbitrator, and the Post agreed to abide by the decision. In what has to be one of the most shocking arbitration decisions in recent history, the independent labor arbitrator, Sarah Miller Espinosa, ruled that the Washington Post lacked "good and sufficient cause" for her termination and violated its labor agreement. The arbitrator noted that firing her was "disproportional" and appeared to hold Attiah accountable for threats made by external actors on social media, subsequently ordering the Post to reinstate her with full back pay.
Matt Taibbi's Racket News:
That Attiah is a hypocrite on speech issues is undeniable, but that isn’t the first thing that jumps out reading her copy. The bigger issue is that she sucks. She’s on a short list of the most defiantly unoriginal, skilless columnists ever employed at a major American newspaper. Her columns read like first drafts, and her social media posts are full of gems like, “White women are lucky that we are just calling them ‘Karen’s’ [sic]. And not calling for revenge.” Her columns are just a micro-step removed from Titania McGrath-type parody of the “Shakespeare was a black woman. Deal with it" variety, only she’s not in on the joke.
Attiah was not hired by the Washington Post to be a "good writer." She was hired as a weapon of war. The Nazis called them flammenwerfers: flamethrowers. The problem that the Nazis soon discovered was that the individual using the flammenwerfer, and anyone within about 25 feet of him, would become a toasted Nazi in a battle if one stray bullet or piece of shrapnel hit the portable fuel tank.
Such was the fate of Karen Attiah.
That is, until Miller-Espinoza decided that Attiah had an absolute First Amendment right to suck, as Taibbi puts it.
The fact that Attiah was once such an enthusiastic proponent of firing people for speech reasons in addition to being such a vapid columnist makes it tempting to dismiss her case as completely without foundation. It isn’t, not exactly. Sweeping changes in media forced writers who otherwise could confine their opinions to what they covered in edited work to post constantly on social media as part of their job description. (Occasionally you’ll even find social media responsibilities listed in want ads for reporters.) Opinion writers know they have to gain attention, so they often say crazy things online, without benefit of editors, which does make it sleazy when newspapers fire writers for saying those outlandish things.
Indeed, if the Post didn't want a columnist to spout crazy, racialist nonsense, why did they hire Attiah in the first place?
I am usually as close to a free speech absolutist as one can get. The Constitution puts no limits on what is "acceptable speech," and neither do I. But the Washington Post is not the government. If an employee offends a lot of readers, a newspaper that lost $100 million the previous year should have the right to fire someone who threatens its bottom line.
Attiah's schtick is past its prime. We're in a post-racial society where simply calling someone a racist, or claiming they threaten "violence" when they do no such thing, is no longer acceptable without some universally recognized proof. Words are not "violence," and someone who claims they are is trying to use their supposed "moral authority" to destroy an individual's life and career.
That it boomeranged on Attiah should be an object lesson to other flammenwerfers who wish to gain notoriety by using race as a weapon.
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