September 15, 2025
‘Now, I’m the one being silenced—for doing my job,” Karen Attiah wrote in a scathing Substack put up on Sept. 15.
A Washington Publish columnist mentioned she was fired over social media posts on gun management and race following Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
In a scathing Substack put up on Sept. 15, author Karen Attiah criticized the Jeff Bezos-owned media outlet for firing the final Black full-time opinion columnist over her social media posts addressing political violence, following latest shootings in Utah, the place Kirk was killed, and Colorado, the place a teen opened hearth at his highschool, injuring two college students earlier than taking his personal life.
“As a columnist, I used my voice to defend freedom and democracy, problem energy and mirror on tradition and politics with honesty and conviction,” Attiah wrote. “Now, I’m the one being silenced—for doing my job.”
Screenshots of Attiah’s Bluesky posts reveal her outrage over what she views as America’s complacency towards gun violence, significantly amongst white People, who provide “ideas and prayers” as an alternative of taking motion after horrific shootings. She additionally highlighted her most generally shared thread on the political assassinations of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, clarifying that the put up was not about Kirk, “who was horribly murdered.”
“I pointed to the acquainted sample of America shrugging off gun deaths, and giving compassion for white males who commit and espouse political violence,” Attiah defined.
Nonetheless, after 11 years on the Publish, Attiah says she was fired after the outlet deemed her Bluesky posts as “unacceptable,” displaying “gross misconduct” and that they endangered the bodily security of colleagues, all allegations she says are “with out proof” and “fully false.”
“They rushed to fireplace me with out even a dialog—claiming disparagement on race,” Attiah wrote. “This was not solely a hasty overreach, however a violation of the very requirements of journalistic equity and rigor the Publish claims to uphold.”
With the dismissal of the final Black full-time opinion columnist on the outlet in a various metropolis, “Washington, D.C., now not has a paper that displays the individuals it serves,” Attiah mentioned. She views her firing not solely for example of accelerating silencing and censorship, however as “a part of a broader purge of Black voices from academia, enterprise, authorities, and media.”
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