When Black and brown writers are hired by prominent media institutes, In fact, a number of the signatories have made a point of punishing people who have spoken out against them, including Bari Weiss (who Rowling, one of the signers, has spouted transphobic and transmisogynist rhetoric, mocking the idea that trans men could exist, and Jesse Singal, another signer, is a cis man infamous for advancing his career by writing derogatorily about trans issues. For every signer of that first letter, there are thousands of voiceless victims that you have ignorantly dismissed.Thanks for providing clear evidence of why the first letter is so vital.This is a disgusting smear of Thomas Chatterton Williams. Defunding the police is a bridge too far for her to consider although she shares every aim and has laid down thousands of hours to try to get to those aims.Personally, it's too common that I'm told my lived experiences are wrong or that I have no right to speak on issues because my identity is wrong.This response letter spends a lot of time on who's behind the letter, what's not in the letter and what should have been in the original letter.It starts with a jab at Harper's magazine for its poor history. It is signed by academics, journalists, and writers from various institutions. Maybe the readers of such a magazine are just the people who need to hear the message the authors share?

In fact, they have never faced serious consequences — only momentary discomfort. What’s perhaps even more grating to many of the signatories is that a critique of their long held views is persuasive.The response also  seeks to refutes, in detail, the six examples given in the Harper’s letter as evidence of the stifling climate it envisions.

From that letter:The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.Maybe I'm just not seeing the "coded language" but it seems pretty clear to me that the Harper's letter was expressing a concern of a chilling effect on intellectual debate.
A More Specific Letter on Justice and Open Debate. Their letter seeks to uphold a “stifling atmosphere” and prioritizes signal-blasting their discomfort in the face of valid criticism. In fact, they have never faced serious consequences — only momentary discomfort.The response letter is signed by journalists from many news outlets, including some who endorsed it anonymously because of nondisclosure agreements with their employers or because they feared reprisals.The letter is endorsed by staffers from outlets like Huffington Post, New York Magazine, The Hill, Vice, NPR, New York Times, Slate Magazine, NBC News, Jezebel, The Intercept, Bon Appetit, and institutions like Boston College, NYU, and more. This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.Mike Masnick of Techdirt has written a couple of good (and fairly long) posts about this letter as well:I think the follow-up hits the nail on the head: part of the issue with these discussions is that people, knowingly or not, tend to amalgamate instances with wildly varying contexts as "cancel culture". John Edmundson via Marxism Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:04:32 -0700 I also don't think we can use the existence of the systemic injustice to explain away (or in some cases commend) damage done in its name. The problem they are describing is for the most part a rare one for privileged writers, but it is constant for the voices that have been most often shut out of the room. And though the Right is the primary recipient of cancelling, if *anyone* does not toe the ever-changing neo-progressive orthodoxy of the day, they become a target as well. You must read the article before you can post or reply.

When they demand debates, it is on their terms, on their turf.
Maybe I'm just too much of a simpleton; to me it doesn't really matter if I agree with what someone is saying or not. On Tuesday, 153 of the most prominent journalists, authors, and writers, including J. K. Rowling, Malcolm Gladwell, and David Brooks, published an open call for civility in Harper’s Magazine. The piece — entitled “A More Specific Letter on Justice and Open Debate” — challenges the premise of the Harper’s letter, accusing its authors of reacting to a loss of privilege.