Jeff Bezos' Washington Post fires Black columnist on staff over Charlie Kirk posts

The Washington Post's last Black full-time columnist's 11-year career with the publication was cut short over her social media posts following the killing of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk in Utah, according to the writer Monday.

Karen Attiah, 39, alleged in her Substack that the Jeff Bezos-owned publication “rushed to fire me without even a conversation" and deemed her posts on Bluesky as "unacceptable," "gross misconduct," and endangering the physical safety of her colleagues. She rejected the claims as false.

"I spoke out against hatred and violence in America — and it cost me my job," she wrote in the Substack, The Golden Hour.

"As a columnist, I used my voice to defend freedom and democracy, challenge power and reflect on culture and politics with honesty and conviction," she said. "Now, I am the one being silenced — for doing my job."

Following the shootings in Utah and Colorado, she posted on Bluesky and "condemned America’s acceptance of political violence and criticized its ritualized responses — the hollow, cliched calls for 'thoughts and prayers' and statements that'this is not who we are' that normalize gun violence and absolve white perpetrators especially, while nothing is done to curb deaths."

"I pointed to the familiar pattern of America shrugging off gun deaths, and giving compassion for white men who commit and espouse political violence," she said. "This cycle has been documented for years. Nothing I said was new or false or disparaging— it is descriptive, and supported by data."

Attiah mentioned that she has not called Kirk out by name.

But she partially quoted Kirk's a 2023 episode of his show, crediting him with saying, “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s spot."

Although it was not the exact quote, she referenced a conversation Kirk had on his podcast around affirmative action, speaking about liberal Black women such as Michelle Obama and former Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee, the Daily Beast reported.

Attiah shared that she will continue writing on her Substack.

"My journalistic and moral values for balance compelled me to condemn violence and murder without engaging in excessive, false mourning for a man who routinely attacked Black women as a group, put academics in danger by putting them on watch lists, claimed falsely that Black people were better off in the era of Jim Crow, said that the Civil Rights Act was a mistake, and favorably reviewed a book that called liberals “unhumans”.

The Post has not commented on Attiah or its removal of her from her role.

"This was not only a hasty overreach, but a violation of the very standards of journalistic fairness and rigor the Post claims to uphold," she wrote.

She pointed to how she was the last remaining Black full-time opinion columnist.

"Washington D.C. no longer has a paper that reflects the people it serves," Attiah said. "What happened to me is part of a broader purge of Black voices from academia, business, government, and media — a historical pattern as dangerous as it is shameful — and tragic."