Fired Google Memo Guy Says KKK ‘Names Are Cool’ in Nonsensical Tweetstorm (UPDATE)

Caleb EcarmaSep 20th, 2017, 2:31 pm
 

James Damore — the ex-Google employee who was fired after issuing a memo bashing diversity policies — used his Tuesday afternoon to blast out a nonsensical tweetstorm praising the “cool” titles of the Ku Klux Klan’s hierarchy system.

The self-identifying “centrist nerd” attempted to make a point about “moralized issues,” tweeting, “The KKK is horrible and I don’t support them in any way, but can we admit that their internal title names are cool, e.g. ‘Grand Wizard’?” The post included a poll with four response options: Yes; No, the names aren’t cool; No, that’s racist; and No, other (see above).

After immediate blowback, Damore followed up with an extremely bizarre line of thinking: he suggested that you do yourself an intellectual disservice by examining the most reprehensible movements in a good vs. evil perspective, since you can no longer  “acknowledge any positive aspect” of the group.

While he didn’t name any such positive aspects in the KKK, he did make an analogy seemingly comparing the white supremacist group to drugs and sex: You have to be responsible, but “they can be fun.”

“If you make the actual KKK the only place where you can acknowledge the coolness of D&D terms, then you’ll just push people into the KKK,” he added, “D&D” in this context referring to Dungeons and Dragons — because of course Damore would reference the roleplaying video game when discussing morality.

To summarize, Damore appears to be doing some kind of mental gymnastic routine to justify his weird poll praising KKK titles. His qualm seems to be that some people are totally incapable of reasonably discussing certain topics — even when it comes to what he considers to be amoral details of groups like the KKK.

His full tweetstorm went as follows:

In his infamous diversity memo, Damore bashed the tech company’s “politically correct monoculture” and claimed that Google had created an “idealogical echo chamber.” His 10-page rant explained how biological reasons contribute to the gender gap in the male-dominated tech industry. Women, Damore claims, struggle with certain anxiety and stress intolerance that men do not, adding that Google should pursue diversity policies in a different fashion instead of incorporating affirmative action hiring.

After all this, it seems that Damore’s career prospects in Silicon Valley may have dried up following this self-induced controversy — but with all this KKK talk, he may have a coding career at 4Chan or even StormFront.

UPDATE 6:22 p.m. ET — Damore is now trying to walk back his earlier Tweets.

[image via screengrab]

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Caleb Ecarma

Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. Email him here: caleb@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma