I was first alerted to Mother Jones editor Clara Jeffery’s bad take when someone shared it on my timeline, QTing along the lines of, that’s a bad take. I remember thinking, yes, that it is, but had some nagging feeling that I shouldn’t boost this criticism, because as bad as the take was, it just felt a bit too obviously bad, as well as harmless, and therefore not in need of reinforcements.
Sure enough, my feed was positively bursting with people, with platforms running the gamut, who would have you know that they know that it’s dumb and rude to flip out because your flight attendant said something generically chipper that you read goodness knows what into.
I searched Twitter for “blessed” and everyone (even at least one NYT columnist!) has dunked.
People dug up that Jeffery herself has used “blessed” or variants of it in tweets. Receipts!!!!!
It was also insinuated that Jeffery is a racist—not just punching down class-wise but also the one that matters. As surprised me not in the least, she claims (it is virtually unverifiable unless you were on that flight) that the flight attendant was white. I thought, no way she’d have said this if the woman wasn’t white. I am not an original thinker.
Why is this bad take taking off (get it, get it) as it is?
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