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In your hypothetical example, I would argue that the censure for the same kinds of remarks is not applied equally. Getting back to the OP, this very real Asian woman made some terrible remarks, and while I don't think she needs to be fired for them, the NYT is clearly taking the stance that she only did it because she was being harassed. Let's flip this around a bit. If this were a white man making the exact same remarks about Asian women, do you believe that A) there would be the same contingent of people in society defending those remarks? and B) the NYT would adopt the same attitude that he was only doing it due to online harassment about his race and gender?No one is allowed to make disparaging comments about other groups of people. Everyone who does it at the high level of public scrutiny faces some form of social censure.
Where some people are claiming a double standard is when they start make false equivalencies between what is being said. To create a completely fictional example - Person A runs up to a complete stranger and yells multiple racial epithets in the strangers face. Person B write a similar epithet about a different race on a tweet. It would be absurd to expect both of those scenarios to experience the same social censure.
So, when someone says "Group X is full of lazy ignorant SOBs who are incapable of adding anything of value to society," it's just insane to then equate that to anything that doesn't rise to that level.
People like to claim the double standard exists but they don't often compare the actual statements that are being censured. Or to put it in a less formal fashion...when was the last time anyone gave Louis Farrakhan a genuine platform to offer his opinions to the nation?
Louis Farrakhan doesn't get a great platform, and neither does David Duke. Good. But Al Sharpton, a man who has made a career off of race-baiting and spoken some highly controversial remarks about Jews surrounding the riot in Crown Heights, is the host of a show on MSNBC.