Reflections on the New Yorker’s Recent Changes

There’s a lot of chatter surrounding what we might call the traditional ideas found within American intellectual circles. These conversations tend to surface weekly in the pages of The New Yorker, which, at its best, has produced some remarkable writing and reporting. However, if I think back over the last decade, it seems we’ve strayed from what one might call normal times. Indeed, the traditional views have shifted significantly—from paranoid idealism to some pretty extreme ideas, not altogether pleasant.

Recent writings by Doreen St. Felix, a staff writer for The New Yorker, illustrate this shift well. Her portrayal of Sydney Sweeney—calling her the “Princess of Aryan”—is quite provocative, to say the least. At the same time, there’s a striking contrast in her work, notably a piece titled “Black Man’s Hunger for the Ass,” which has sparked quite a conversation.

This is far removed from the New Yorker of yore, that’s for sure. A decade ago, it seemed like a lot of writers were jumping on the bandwagon of “diversity and inclusion,” promoting it as a type of anti-racist initiative. The magazine, under Condé Nast’s ownership, explicitly embraced racial quotas for hiring, promising to discuss racism as often as possible.

The New Yorker, it seems, has aligned itself with certain racial ideologies, often featuring voices like St. Felix who reflect these trends and preferences. After her contentious piece on Sweeney, a colleague pointed me to some of St. Felix’s previous posts on social media where she expressed disdain for white men—a sentiment that understandably raised eyebrows.

In exploring her posts, I found some particularly troubling statements about “whiteness” and its associated negative connotations. Phrases like “I hate white men” and unusual ideas about “white terrorism” painted a troubling picture. These comments were penned years prior to her time at The New Yorker and reflect a prevailing ideology that many believed aided entry into cultural conversations during the Black Lives Matter movement.

St. Felix’s controversial statements caught public attention and even made headlines in major outlets. Shortly after the backlash, she deleted her social media accounts, which is not a common move for writers associated with such high-profile publications.

This whole situation with St. Felix raises some important questions, particularly about how we understand “anti-racism” in modern culture. Social critic Wesley Yang has put it quite clearly—while outlets like The New Yorker have long prided themselves on being “anti-racist,” they sometimes overlook the nuances that affect various communities. It’s almost as if there’s a further stigmatization at play, particularly against white individuals, that deserves scrutiny.

Some have called for St. Felix to apologize, or even for The New Yorker to reconsider having her on staff. Personally, I wonder if silence would be a more effective response. Rather than entering into what feels like a performance or a public relations exercise, it may be more beneficial to acknowledge the discrepancies of the past decade. After all, I think many of us have realized that the essence of the BLM movement was, at times, misrepresented.

The so-called “racial calculations” that have brought forth writers like St. Felix haven’t necessarily elevated anyone; they seem more a means to regulate the majority than to support minorities. And it’s hard not to feel like governance over the past few years often served the interests of a few, rather than addressing the broader community.

In a way, perhaps we should thank Doreen St. Felix. She has, however accidentally, laid bare some uncomfortable truths for all of us to contemplate.