Harper's Scarlet Letter

There are more important matters than the Harper’s Magazine letter that set off a backlash wave performatively proving its own urgency.

There’s the coronavirus’s stubborn refusal to evaporate into the ether, the looming presidential election, the reform movements variously aimed at racial justice, police reform, and a host of other causes whose time has thankfully come.

But as the editor of a pluralist publication and newsletter focused on online discourse — a publication and newsletter, mind you, that I regularly use to platform the more important topics listed above — the Harper’s letter and the backlash surrounding it take on an added importance for me.