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Slack and Flickr co-founder says 'fuck you' to WSJ over Charleston shooting

Slack and Flickr co-founder says 'fuck you' to WSJ over Charleston shooting

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'It matters how we talk about it.'

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Stewart Butterfield, the co-founder of both Slack and Flickr, has condemned the The Wall Street Journal on Twitter for an editorial it published after the Charleston shooting. The WSJ described the massacre as "a problem that defies explanation" and claimed that "the system and philosophy of institutionalized racism identified by Dr. King no longer exists." Butterfield responded: "Pretending it doesn't exist is, cognitively, really hard work. And it is dishonest and unfair and cruel work too. It's its own violence."

"WSJ editorial board: fuck you!"

The tech entrepreneur compared the WSJ's editorial with Jon Stewart's Daily Show monologue on the same events. Stewart lamented America's inability to confront the "gaping racial wound that will not heal, yet we pretend doesn't exist," with Butterfield adding: "Acknowledging that we still have a very, very long way to go is literally the least anyone could do." He concludes: "WSJ editorial board: fuck you!"

Butterfield's series of tweets also called attention to the problem of structural racism in the US, and how, as a white male, he's never had to consider that he might "die, or even be in danger, after getting pulled over by a cop."

Butterfield commented that although "WSJ editorials are meant to be spectacle ... there's a difference between their normal obnoxious horseshit & this one." He concludes: "It is obvious that this privilege is not equally distributed. The thousand little obstacles are constant & very real for many. And so is a racist sociopath with a gun. That's real. And the differential in where the cops' bullets land."