Golden Globe-Winning Screenwriter of "The Green Book" Forced to Delete His Twitter Account, Issue a Groveling Apology for the Crime of Remembering

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[O]nly a couple of days after the Globes telecast, somebody unearthed a 2015 tweet by Vallelonga that instantly went viral. In it, he supported a Twitter statement by Donald Trump that thousands of American Muslims had celebrated 9/11. Wrote Vallelonga: "100% correct. Muslims in Jersey City cheering when towers went down. I saw it, as you did, possibly on local CBS news."

Trump's statement was indeed true, and not just about 9/11. Muslims have applauded every major terrorist act since. But you’re not supposed to say so. Predictably, Vallelonga’s tweet immediately got him into hot water. One of the companies that produced Green Book, Participant Media, issued a statement calling the tweet "offensive, dangerous, and antithetical to Participant Media's values." Dangerous? In reporting on this dustup, the mainstream media were quick to describe Trump’s statement as a "false claim" (The Guardian), as "widely discredited" (BBC), or as "debunked" (Daily Mail).

Unfortunately but inevitably, Vallelonga issued a mea culpa. First he deleted his Twitter account, then he put out a groveling apology...

Note what he didn't say: he didn't say that, after giving the matter serious consideration and consulting the media archives, he's decided he was mistaken about having seen Muslims cheering on 9/11. No, the point here is presumably that, even if some Muslims did rejoice in the events of that day, it's wrong to acknowledge such facts. It's apparently OK, then, for Muslims to cheer 9/11, but not OK to say that they did.

posted by Ace of Spades at 02:38 PM

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