Columnist Karen Attiah complained on Monday that The Washington Post fired her for falsely quoting Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk following his assassination.
The Post fired Attiah for falsely quoting Kirk stating that “black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously” on BlueSky, a left-wing social media website. In a Substack post, Attiah accused the Post of engaging in “hasty overreach” over their swift firing of her and instantly made her termination about race.
“And yet, the Post accused my measured Bluesky posts of being ‘unacceptable’, ‘gross misconduct’ and of endangering the physical safety of colleagues — charges without evidence, which I reject completely as false. They rushed to fire me without even a conversation. This was not only a hasty overreach, but a violation of the very standards of journalistic fairness and rigor the Post claims to uphold,” Attiah wrote. “Since then, my words on absolution for white male violence have proven prescient. The suspect in Kirk’s killing is indeed a young white man, and already, lawmakers are urging us to pray for him. The media is painting the 22 year-old as a good, all-American suburban kid. The cycle I mentioned has once again come to pass.”
The fired columnist falsely accused Kirk of having “attacked Black women” and of saying that black people were better off living under Jim Crow. Kirk never made any of these claims.
“The Washington Post fired me” over Charlie Kirk posts, writes @KarenAttiah.
“I have been canceled by Columbia. I have now been canceled by the Washington Post.” https://t.co/3kLfcwq99h
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) September 15, 2025