This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 23 episode of “Deadline: White House.”
On Tuesday, Jimmy Kimmel returned to the air six days after ABC pre-empted his late-night show over comments he made in the wake of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The comedian’s return came after intense backlash and public outcry.
Users of Disney’s streaming service canceled their memberships in droves. Behind the scenes, we saw massive organizing operations from the American Civil Liberties Union and various Hollywood unions. High-profile celebrities like Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep signed public letters urging ABC to reverse its decision. The pushback was public and powerful.
However, while watching this whole process unfold, I couldn’t help but think of Karen Attiah, an opinion writer at The Washington Post who was fired earlier this month over her opinions about Kirk.
Attiah’s termination letter from the Post cited multiple “public comments” from her Bluesky account, where she wrote that “Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is … not the same as violence,” as well as: “Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and abosolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.”
Attiah’s comments, in my view, were not only clear examples of her exercising her right to free speech but also factually accurate, and did not celebrate violence. She was trying to enlighten people about some of the issues we have to confront as a society, like racism and gun violence.
But that’s not funny, it’s not on television, and so Attiah’s firing failed to receive the same level of public condemnation as Kimmel’s suspension. However, Americans must remember that these things don’t happen in a vacuum.
Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, many of us have been trying to figure out how to better support those who find themselves targeted by the administration. In the same week that we saw Trump’s Federal Communications Commission target Kimmel, the president urged the Justice Department to prosecute his political enemies.
All over the country, there are nonprofit organizations, unions and groups of people who are actively working to educate the public about these attacks and organize ways to take action.
The public backlash to Kimmel’s suspension shows what can happen when Americans recognize attempts to squash dissent and band together to put a stop to it.
For the sake of our democracy, this kind of collective action must continue, regardless of the popularity of the target. Americans need to stand up for all of those who are being silenced, whether that be a late-night comedian or a newspaper columnist.
