Jeffrey Toobin returns: See his first CNN interview since his Zoom incident
Always great to know that a pervert gets off scott free. And by “always”, we mean that it’s absolutely terrible and yet another reminder of how the system is stacked in favor of men over women. That, sure, people will decry how terrible an action that someone did is, but they’ll give a person unlimited chances. It’s the same sort of performative outrage that we see more and more lately.
Jeffrey Toobin is the latest person to benefit from a performative outrage. It looked like this pervert was going to get the boot from his journalistic jobs with such places like CNN and The New Yorker. Now, however, CNN has allowed Toobin to come back, despite the Zoom call that outraged everyone. What happened? What does this say about cancel culture?
What did Jeffrey Toobin do?
Back in October 2020, Toobin was on a Zoom call with some of his colleagues at The New Yorker. During the call, several of the participants caught him masturbating on camera. In a statement at the time, Toobin said, “I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers”
He added with an explanation that did not sound that genuine, “I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video.” Survey says at least try with a better explanation, Jeffrey. It’s definitely a bare bones explanation. And, well, we were well into a pandemic at this point, man. You should have known better.
And his first interview back on CNN, who have yet to explain their decision to bring Toobin back, did not give any more answers. “I didn’t think I was on the call. I didn’t think other people could see me.” He also gave the even more pat response that he’s trying to be a better person. Sure, Jeff, sure. Zoom just magically opened up and caught you masturbating. Whatever.
And now he’s back?
Jeffrey Toobin is yet another example of how cancel culture can backfire. Sure, cancel culture is supposed to, well, cancel someone. It’s supposed to get them out of the public eye on a permanent basis. But with so many people being “cancelled”, the ones who truly deserve it just sort of ride the wave of outrage and then get back to work when things have died down.
Jeffrey Toobin masturbated in front of colleagues on a Zoom call, who did not consent to seeing him do such an act. He should be in a lot more trouble for this. And he should not appear as an analyst on CNN anymore. Yet, he got eight whole minutes to explain his side of the story. Toobin refused to take full blame for his actions. He made the choices that brought him here.
Cancel culture did, at first, appear to do the job that it was assigned to do. Toobin was held accountable for his actions. Unfortunately, the pressure didn’t remain on Toobin for his Zoom incident. Apparently, enough time has passed for people to feel comfortable bringing him back in for work. Enough time, apparently, is about eight months, if you’re counting.
Is there no hope?
What happened with Jeffrey Toobin is just an example of how there is a double-standard in the media and how white men can still, apparently, get the benefit of the doubt. This is a society that benefits them and forgives them more easily if they do something gross & grossly wrong. The only thing left to do is try to change the system, if that’s even possible at this point.
At the very least, we can’t keep on the way we are.
