Reuters data scientist questioned the BLM narrative–so the company fired him
For those wanting more context, here is the post that got him fired: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kriegman.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;post-leading-to-termination-blm-falsehoods" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kriegman.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;post-leading-to-termination-...</a><p>&gt; Unfortunately, over the past few years I have grown more and more concerned about the damage that the movement is doing to many low income black communities.  I have avidly followed the research on the movement and its impacts, which has led me, inexorably, to the conclusion that the claim at the heart of the movement, that police more readily shoot black people, is false and likely responsible for thousands of black people being murdered in the most disadvantaged communities in the country.<p>If you really care about minority communities but are not a part of that community, might want to throw us a few lines about what you’ve been doing outside of criticizing BLM to support these communities. History is filled with outsiders trying to “help” minorities and in tragically misguided ways. As any data scientist should know, communities, culture and data are complex. You can have theories, but to be so confident in something that you haven’t lived or experienced first hand raises a few flags. Naïve, but not fireable IMO.<p>&gt; Unfortunately, in both our internal discussion and external coverage there seems to be a nearly absolute failure to examine the scholarly research, coming out of the most respected institutions in our country, which demonstrates the acute damage that the BLM movement is doing to many black communities, and the possibility that structural and systemic patterns in our society which have historically disenfranchised blacks are propelling the movement’s whirlwind rise.<p>A fireable offense. You can’t internally condemn the company you work for and expect to retain your job. The framing is harsh, judgmental and targets any employee who has participated in the coverage. It’s fine if you’re management, but as a data scientist that’s not your role. The world is more complex than the data you’re getting with can be inherently biased, underreported, etc. To think you have the correct answer based on numbers alone is pretty arrogant and not someone who I’d want on my team. It’s fine to scream “The data is showing ____”, but the lived experiences of people might be different and that’s why these conversations are complex and not as simple as 1+1=2.<p>&gt; there is a substantial body of evidence establishing that members of different racial groups resist arrest at very different rates.  Because the vast majority of potentially dangerous encounters happen when a suspect resists arrest, a greater rate of resisting arrest will be expected to increase the number of police shootings, even if police have absolutely no bias when deciding when to shoot.<p>Very narrow-sighted. Maybe groups that receive harsher sentences resist arrest more? And maybe resisting arrest shouldn’t be a lethal proposition? This is an incomplete look at a complex issue, which again posed with such conviction when a data scientist should know better is fireable IMO. I’d want my team to think a little deeper than this.<p>&gt; The best explanation I can come up with for why a person (white, black or any other race) would support the BLM movement, is ignorance of even the most rudimentary facts.<p>Intellectually lazy. Even with the harshest view of BLM, you might assume that people join and support groups for personal &#x2F; community reasons just as they do with any religion or sports team. Anyway, if you think anyone who supports BLM is dumb, you’re too biased to be in a reputable news organization IMO and firing is reasonable. Even if you don’t like BLM, think the data is clearly showing X while they’re saying Y, you can leave it at that without judging any labeling the supporters en mass.<p>&gt; the BLM movement’s anti-police rhetoric and propaganda found a receptive audience<p>More judgement and labeling.<p>The article goes on, but it’s a rant and not worth debating point by point as it’s goes about 6” deep on an issue that’s close to 6’ deep. The length of the post itself is concerning, especially as others pointed out writing BLM essays on the internal message board wasn’t part of his job.<p>You might think his analysis is true, you might not, but at the end of the day I wouldn’t want any one of my employees posting something like this to an internal message board. It’s antagonist, judgmental, close-minded and absolutist. Not qualities I’d want in a data scientist at a news organization. Not to mention criticizing his colleagues and superiors publicly.<p>This wreaks of someone going out in a ball of flames rather than some innocent guy fired for having alternate beliefs.<p>Sorry to everyone who got excited by the title and thought the woke mob fired someone again. Turns out a data scientist went outside of his job description to publish a massive rant with poor conclusions and harsh criticism and got fired for it. As far as SJWs going too far, this one isn’t it.