Gubernatorial campaign staffer hates elderly people and Asians: "Shut up and speak English"

Kathlyn Ehl, a policy staffer for Washington Republican Rob McKenna's gubernatorial campaign, has many tweets to delete! [The Stranger]

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The Snowden Principle

http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

I can’t quite make out what her picture is. Is that a service dog? Maybe instead of inconveniencing people who are allergic to dogs she should GET A ROBOT.
http://vinnietesla.com/ Vinnie Tesla

What is she, lazy? She should just learn to speak Asian.
corydodt

If they shut up, how can they speak English? She’s not a racist, she’s a zen master.
- Fogbert
  
  “Well which is it young feller? You want I should freeze or get down on the ground? Mean to say, if’n I freeze, I can’t rightly drop. If’n I drop, I’m a-gonna be in motion.”
  - Felton / Moderator
    
    Heh! That was my first thought as well.
http://www.facebook.com/postelwait Cameron Postelwait

doesn’t she know that old people are the only ones that vote?
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

It’s those Scandinavians that don’t speak Africaans that really get on my goat.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  Speak Abenaki or get out
  - KWillets
    
    Algonquian tribes were not particularly courteous in their language towards Scandinavians:
    
    agongos: a chipmunk [Tamias striatus; Eutamias minimus] 2 a Scandinavian
    
    http://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/main-entry/agongos-na
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=4922450 Arlo Lyle

Well it would appear she resigned 9 days ago.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2012/07/18/mckenna-aide-quits-speak-english-tweet-offended-asians/
- Boundegar
  
  Maybe the elderly hordes made her late to work.
http://profile.yahoo.com/6IOUGPFXUL4SCJX4UQFBZA75RA CliffordS

Well which one is it Kathlyn? Do you want me to shut up or do you want me to speak English? It’s very difficult to do both!!!
- malindrome
  
  Say nothing, but when you don’t say it, don’t say it in English.
Ken At Popehat

My three Asian-American kids speak English. Only English, actually, though the youngest is starting at a Mandarin immersion school in September.

However, they NEVER. SHUT. UP.

Can they get partial credit from Ms. Ehl?
Vengefultacos

So, good to know that there’s still some places out there that will hire you without doing extensive slogging through your social media accounts… And good for them… what could possibly go wrong?
tylerdurden

This is clearly an incident of a hacked account, no?
- Cyanocitta
  
  Pretty sure it’s not. She had many others on there that were questionable, I believe.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Drop/100000929402049 Robert Drop
  
  Sounds like she was a college student who made a bunch of completely idiotic tweets before being hired by the campaign. She was stupid enough to not consider that this stuff might hurt her career in the future (though apparently it hadn’t so much, considering she was hired by the campaign anyways).
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    “As the father of two young women, it pains me to accept the resignation of a young woman for a mistake which occurred before she had even begun her career.”
    
    Because it’s just fine to be a racist fuck before you start your career as long as you remove the evidence in a timely fashion. McKenna’s statement is a triumph of political style over moral substance.
- EH
  
  No need to get that complicated, she was already an intern.
Cyanocitta

Not to piss and moan, but this is over, isn’t it? She was fired and then deleted her twitter account many days ago. Though McKenna didn’t do a good job of handling it initially.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  I for one had not heard of it, and it gave me chuckle aside the shiver. Worth it.
- ldobe
  
  I live in Seattle, and I’d not heard of it. Of course, I get nearly all my news from NPR, so they might have just not dubbed it newsworthy.
  
  And before the comments come rolling in, yes, I know NPR leans left and probably would have picked this story up if there was much meaning to it.
  - Geoduck
    
    For anyone in the Seattle area.. despite the name, I recommend http://horsesass.org/ as a go-to blog for keeping up with stuff like this. Warning/recommendation: it has a highly progressive slant.
    
    As for the tweet-writer, she got the job because, surprise surprise, her family is politically connected.
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      Aw, so in the end she’ll probably still end up with a well paying job despite having awful views and a temper. And so it goes…
  - Oceanconcepts
    
    It was pretty prominent in local news outlets, such as the Seattle Times (the analog, dead trees newspaper). Not much of a national story.
    NPR is “left” only in the current American context where a third of the population has gone chiroptera-guano crazy and a major “news” outlet functions as the propaganda ministry of a permanent political campaign. It would be center- right in most of the rest of the world.
    - ldobe
      
      There’s my problem. Since you can’t grep dead trees, I don’t read them. I listen to NPR, and the rest of my news comes from here, techdirt, slashdot, and the Daily Show and Colbert. And Wikipedia’s homepage news aggrigator
- penguinchris
  
  I think it’s still interesting to look at and discuss, even if it’s over.
  
  First, I think there’s an important discussion to be had here regarding people of my generation (recent college grads). They make these kinds of jokes all the time and they don’t understand that it’s racist/mean-spirited/etc. and they don’t realize what it says about them as a person. I think it’s a good thing to ridicule people who make these jokes – they think they’re better, more informed, more cosmopolitan, etc. than old people who are outright racist, which is how they justify making racist or otherwise ignorant jokes (ridiculous logic).
  
  That’s not to say that there’s no way these kinds of jokes can be amusing… although there’s pretty much no way you can morph these particular jokes to be funny, especially without some extra context, because they’re inherently mean-spirited, ignorant, and self-centered.
  
  (By the way the one about old people was made funny in the opening traffic jam scene in the film Office Space. That’s how you do an “old people are slow” joke.)
  
  Second, it emphasizes the point that social media is not private, and you need to self-censor. It amazes me that people still don’t realize this. If we need to parade ignorant idiots who don’t realize that as example all the time to drive the point home for everybody else, so be it. In the process we’re also telling these people that thinking these things and being a self-centered ignorant asshole is not OK even if you do self-censor.
howaboutthisdangit

Seems to have some hostility issues to deal with.

I imagine that many years from now, when she is old and grey, as she valiantly crosses the street one tiny, trembling step at a time, she will be run over by an angry, impatient twenty-something…. who turns out to be a grandchild that she never met due to the fact that she alienated her family many years before.
- Cowicide
  
  Seems to have some hostility issues to deal with.
  
  Do you mean the entire Republican party or just Kathlyn?
Boundegar

She’s only tweeting what the rest of us are thinking. If by “the rest of us” you mean middle-aged white Republicans. And really, who else matters?
mypalmike

As a US citizen, I just spent a couple weeks on vacation in Europe and was amazed at how tolerant the German, Dutch, and Flemish speakers I met were of my complete inability to communicate in their language, and at how overtly supportive people were when I was ruining a beautiful language with my minimal French skills. It takes a unique culture of negativity and egotism to lead ones neurons to render the thought “shut up and speak English, Asians”.
- bcsizemo
  
  But just to point out something, you were on vacation.
  
  I’d be very tolerant of a non-English speaking person on vacation in America, and I wouldn’t see anything wrong with it. However if you have lived in America for several years learning the language that the vast majority of the population speaks would be a courteous thing to do.
  
  As an American if I moved to France I would try everything in my power to learn French. I might not be very good at it, but I’m certainly going to try my best to integrate into their society. But maybe that’s just me.
  - snowmentality
    
    Let’s say you move to France, learn French, and speak French in your regular daily life. But occasionally you meet up at a local café with friends who are also American. Wouldn’t you be likely to speak English among yourselves, even though the other people in the café wouldn’t understand you? Would it be right for them to assume you’re refusing to learn French or integrate into their society because they overhear you speaking English? Would they have a right to get pissy and tweet “Fermez les gueules et parlez français! #américains”
    
    Because I deeply suspect that’s the situation that led to the tweet — not a language barrier, but being annoyed at a group of people speaking amongst themselves in a language other than English.
    - bcsizemo
      
      Well that is certainly a situation that could arise. It is also equally possible, given that I live in France, speak decent enough French, and have American friends (that speak English and maybe French as well) that I’d converse with our waitstaff in French, and any other patron in French.
      
      What about a different scenario. Once where I live in France, but have decided to learn only the basic parts of French I need to get buy. I’ve also opened an American themed grocery store, and predominately speak English while conducting business. Do you think the French would get pissy about that?
      
      Somehow I don’t think nationalism is limited to American soil, at least not from things I pick up around the internet. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, but more a part of human nature coupled with our individual types of culture.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I try to learn some of the language when I travel. Which oddly worked quite well in Egypt and India and failed utterly in Greece. I managed to sweet talk my group into a private party at the Cairo Opera House, but I couldn’t get anyone to understand my asking for the men’s room in Athens.
Kat Y

B—-, my English skills test at the 98th percentile. My dad was an English professor at one of the best universities in Asia. Both sides of my family have valedictorians as far back as my great-grandparents. My 88-year-old grandparents have B.Sc’s. Sit down and be quiet before you get fired.
.

You’re a star-belly sneech

You suck like a leach

You want everyone to act like you

Kiss ass while you bitch

So you can get rich

But your boss gets richer off you
thermoplasticity

Okay, who wasn’t surprised that she was Republican? I personally don’t care for them OR Democrats, it’s just interesting that nine times out of ten this kind of thinking and actions are usually Republican. There’s gotta be some kind of sociological study out there of this sort of thing.
Daneel

She should get a new job working for @aidanburleyMP:twitter
Navin_Johnson

Jokes? They’re just mean insults. You can’t tell the difference?
http://twitter.com/asskickerofyou Tripemonkey

If these were jokes, I’m offended on behalf of jokes.
robdobbs

They can make jokes – unless they’re racists jokes. That upsets people.

And to answer your question; It doesn’t matter if it’s mean spirited or just for amusement. See, the problem with racist/sexist/homophobic jokes is that they reinforce negative concepts that are damaging to society in the cloak of humour, allowing them to live on and fester.
EH

How about we go to your Soundcloud page and make “jokes” about what it contains?
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

Racism isn’t funny. Unless you’re racist (or, satirising a racist, of course).
Navin_Johnson

I disagree, but I don’t think Tosh is funny……

The only context where I can see that it would be a joke would be if she was satirizing somebody else’s racist views, and even so, it doesn’t really work that way considering the way it’s bluntly written. I’m not sure how it could be read as anything other than just an angry comment.
http://www.facebook.com/david.aubke David Aubke

The only context I can think of for which my eyelid would not bat is that of mocking someone who would say such a thing.
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

Do your feelings then account for the fact of this person intent on being in a position of influence near an elected official and not at all a paid comedian who relies on the lowest forms of humour to reach the greatest common divisor as audience?

“Feelings? Whoa. Whoa! Whoa!? Feelings!?” -Joe Pesci
http://twitter.com/Polackio Matt Popke

If the humor of your joke truly depends on context and delivery, perhaps it’s best not to share that joke through a medium which effectively removes both context and delivery. Seems like a simple rule for effective communication really.
http://twitter.com/Fongoloid64 Chris

It’s in poor taste in general. Even if it was said to just a few friends. It shows racial intolerance and a bratty entitlement. ”Go faster old man I need my STARBUCKS”
RKTR ♫soundcloud.com/rktr

As a android I have limited understanding of feelings but I know I like jokes and I know I don’t like politics. So maybe they should get reamed out for the tweets?
Felton / Moderator

Maybe she’s from the Prince Philip school of comedy.
EH

relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV7m6IIN_tI
SomeGuyNamedMark

Especially if you are trying to win votes
Navin_Johnson

I’m not for racist jokes but I wish people would be less serious in general. Our life is short we should enjoy it.

Yeesh.