Slate's host of "The Gist" podcast, Mike Pesca, was indefinitely suspended earlier this year, not because of saying racial slurs, but for debating the potential value of directly quoting those slurs.

There is a huge difference in merely talking versus truly speaking. That is to say, words have varying levels of efficacy in how you communicate ideas and emotions to an audience. Let's talk about reporting a fictional murder threat.

Compare the two theoretical quotes:

"The offender said to the victim, 'I'm going to fricking chop off your head and frick the hole.'"

versus

"The offender made death threats toward the victim."

Which of these two quotes really lets the moment sink in to the reader, and genuinely captures the nature of the picture of what happened?

Okay, so let's compare that to the workplace chat sesh. Pesca wasn't spamming "lmao 13 50 jogger heritage" memes to his peers. He was in a debate about the power of words, and how they convey what you want people to hear and feel.

Like the murder case above, I'm pretty sure Pesca was sensible enough to not quote racial slurs for the purpose of promoting them, but instead was more interested in portraying the severity of their use to his listeners.

Yet his wokecel work bros (female, he/him) immediately and eagerly launched an attack to get him fired because he debated how to talk to people in a hypothetical situation.