You, O king, saw, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before you; and its form was frightening. This image’s head was of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, Its legs of iron, its feet part of iron and part of clay. – Daniel 2:31-33
Because I don’t live in New York and am comparatively new (about two years) to the whole blogging scene, I had actually never heard of Nicholas Kristof until autumn of 2010 (which is only fair, since he apparently hadn’t heard of me until March 18th). As I’ve since discovered, he’s been trying to make a name for himself for years, but petty little men like Kristof can never climb on their own; they always do so by trying to bring down others, and if that takes lies so be it. In the last few years he has used “sex trafficking” hysteria (and crusades against prostitutes, brothels and Backpage) to establish himself as a hero to legions of adoring fans, and while those of us working to dispel the myths about the subject have seen him for what he is for quite some time, it’s only recently that more mainstream writers have begun to call attention to this idol’s feet of clay.
The process started the same day he “tweeted” about my column, March 18th; on that day he published one of his typical lurid “sex slavery” accounts, claiming that Backpage was somehow responsible for the “pimping” of a 16-year-old girl he called “Alissa”. As regular readers know, Kristof always plays fast-and-loose with the facts in such columns, but this time he went too far; while he usually uses anonymous women’s stories (often without permission) and then distorts and exaggerates them into unrecognizability (to “protect” the women, of course), this time he left enough facts to allow the story to be checked. So Village Voice (owners of Backpage) did, and guess what?
Nicholas D. Kristof…wrote about an underage victim of human trafficking: “Alissa says pimps routinely peddled her on Backpage.” A video that accompanied his online op-ed was headlined: “Age 16, She Was Sold on Backpage.com” That is not true. According to Alissa’s court testimony, she was 16 in 2003. Backpage.com did not exist anywhere in America in 2003…she…came to the FBI’s attention in August, 2005 [and] was…relocated away from the corners and hotels she worked in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City…In the summer of 2005 Backpage.com did not exist in Boston, New York, Philadelphia or Atlantic City. Had Kristof followed any of The New York Times’ standards of journalism, he would have known this. He could have read the court transcripts. He could have read the testimony…He could have Googled the case and read the coverage in The Boston Globe…Neglecting to do any of the above, Kristof could still have asked us. Despite extensive correspondence with our attorney, he never mentioned Alissa or sought confirmation about her purported link to Backpage.com at the age of 16. Instead, he concocted a story to suit his agenda and then asked his readers to boycott Village Voice Media…
It’s possible that Alissa lied either in her testimony or to Kristof, or both; it would be typical of the “reframing of experiences” neofeminist prohibitionists teach to “survivors”. But given Kristof’s track record, it’s just as likely he made it up without her help. Jacob Sullum of Reason covered the story on the 21st, and one of the commenters on that column provided a link to a May 2010 article in The Atlantic about the ordeal of Dr. Steven Hatfill, who was railroaded by the FBI for the September 2001 anthrax scare…and as it turns out, Kristof helped to lay the rails:
…Some journalists became convinced there was plenty pointing to Hatfill’s guilt. Among those beating the drum early and loud…was Nicholas Kristof…[who initially] stopped short of naming Hatfill publicly, instead branding him with the sinister-sounding pseudonym “Mr. Z.” Without identifying his sources, in a July column Kristof wrote:
If Mr. Z were an Arab national, he would have been imprisoned long ago. But he is a true-blue American with close ties to the U.S. Defense Department, the C.I.A. and the American biodefense program…With many experts buzzing about Mr. Z behind his back, it’s time for the F.B.I. to make a move: either it should go after him more aggressively, sifting thoroughly through his past and picking up loose threads, or it should seek to exculpate him and remove this cloud of suspicion.
One of those threads, Kristof reported, pointed to the possibility that Mr. Z was a genocidal racist who had carried out germ warfare to slaughter innocent black Africans. Kristof addressed his column directly to the FBI:
Have you examined whether Mr. Z has connections to the biggest anthrax outbreak among humans ever recorded, the one that sickened more than 10,000 black farmers in Zimbabwe in 1978–80? There is evidence that the anthrax was released by the white Rhodesian Army fighting against black guerrillas, and Mr. Z has claimed that he participated in the white army’s much-feared Selous Scouts. Could rogue elements of the American military have backed the Rhodesian Army in anthrax and cholera attacks against blacks?
Kristof didn’t mention that the majority of soldiers in the Rhodesian army, and in Hatfill’s unit, were black; or that many well-respected scientists who examined the evidence concluded that the Rhodesian anthrax outbreak emerged naturally when cattle herds went unvaccinated during a turbulent civil war. Kristof also failed to mention that Mr. Z had served in that war as a lowly private. To have been involved in some sort of top-secret Rhodesian germ-weapons program “would’ve been like a Pakistani army private being brought in to work on a project at Los Alamos,” Hatfill says today.
Kristof wrote that Mr. Z had shown “evasion” in repeated FBI polygraph examinations. He also claimed that following the anthrax attacks, Mr. Z had accessed an “isolated residence”…where…“Mr. Z gave Cipro to people who visited it.” Other journalists would later describe this mysterious residence as a “remote cabin,” a kind of Ted Kaczynski–style hideout where a deranged scientist could easily have prepared anthrax for mailing. In fact, the “cabin” was a three-bedroom weekend home…in rural Virginia owned by a longtime friend of Hatfill’s, George R. Borsari Jr., an avuncular Washington communications lawyer and retired Army lieutenant colonel. Borsari says he found speculation that his place had been a haven for spies or bioterrorists laughable. When an FBI agent asked Borsari if he would allow a search of the property, Borsari said no. “I told him, ‘I’m not going to be a part of your publicity game,’” Borsari says. No search was ever conducted, but by then the damage to Hatfill had been done…
Kristof’s grown more ambitious in the past decade; he used to be satisfied with libeling individuals, but now he targets entire corporations. Nor is it only sex worker rights advocates and libertarians who question Kristof’s motives and methods; consider this March 21st article (also from The Atlantic) by Teju Cole, in which he compares Kristof to the disgraced “Invisible Children” crusaders:
…This weekend, I listened to a radio interview given by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof…best known for his… accounts of his activism or that of other Westerners. When I saw the Kony 2012 video, I found it tonally similar to Kristof’s approach…I do not accuse Kristof of racism nor do I believe he is in any way racist…But that, precisely, is what worries me…His good heart does not always allow him to think constellationally. He does not connect the dots or see the patterns of power behind the isolated “disasters.” All he sees…is need, and he sees no need to reason out the need for the need…I disagree with the approach taken by…the White Savior Industrial Complex…because there is much more to doing good work than “making a difference.” There is the principle of first do no harm. There is the idea that those who are being helped ought to be consulted over the matters that concern them…
I think Cole is being too kind in saying Kristof is good-hearted and not racist; in fact I agree with Dr. Laura Agustín that he’s very much a racist, because he believes his own race and culture’s way of doing things is the right way for everyone. True charity does not come at the point of a gun, good causes need not be shored up with lies, and worthy idols do not have feet of clay.
One Year Ago Today
“April Updates” discusses the suppressed Rind-Tromovitch-Bauserman study, reports on the Egyptian women subjected to “virginity tests” and two New Orleans cops fired for harassing streetwalkers, criticizes the conviction of a Massachusetts sportswriter for “pimping” and marks the publication of Satoshi Kanazawa’s column about me.
Nick Kristoff is a perfect storm. I don’t think any individual could piss me off more. KARMA WHERE ARE YOU???
Soooo … he dogged out the Rhodesian Selous Scouts too? Rhodesians took kids as young as 16 and turned them into fierce fighters. The Selous Scouts, in combination with the Rhodesian Light Infantry – were AMAZING.
Personally, if you ask me – the RLI Commando units were more “feared” than the Selous Scouts – who usually kept a low profile. But if an RLI Fireforce landed on your ass in the bush – no need to worry about purchasing Christmas gifts.
And yes, a lot of the Selous Scouts particularly – were Black. In fact, and I forget – but maybe 50 percent or more were black?
But it’s good, in the end, they lost. Zimbabwe is SOOOOO much better now under Robert Mugabe!
Has Kristoff entered the pile-on on George Zimmerman yet?
Attacking the symptoms of a problem is always easier. And more profitable.
People have been conditioned to expect quick solutions, so calls to “boycott Backpage” or “rescue the sex-slaves” find mass (financial) support because it gives the public the feeling of having done something.
It seems like no one wants to ask about what happens after the white knight has rescued the maiden from the tower. Does he give her a pat on the bum and leave her standing by the side of the road? After all, he can’t marry all of them. Or perhaps he takes her to another land and sells her to the owner of another tower. Even white knights have to eat, and horses need a lot of hay.
What do you mean what happens to the maiden? Since her only problem was the evil Patriarchy that pushed her into slavery, if you get her away from it she will live happily ever after. Or do you think poverty, joblessness, and bad parenting had something to do with her situation in the first place?
That’s the tragedy. None of the “Kristoffs” have a solution to provide to those women in Eastern Europe who do sex work in order to support their families and pay for an education.
For instance – a woman of humble origins in school in Bucharest “trafficks” herself to Germany to work in an FKK. She can make, MINIMUM – 100 Euro’s per customer and in a normal day … she can take at least 10 customers. That’s 1000 Euro for the night. If she works 4 nights a week – it’s 4000 Euro. Do that for month – 16,000 Euro.
That’s around $21,000 a month – less some taxes and she can work for multiple months and make even more.
This is money that can really improve her station in life. And, since she brings it back to Romania at the end of the day – it’s a natural wealth transfer that helps her home country.
But see, Kristoff doesn’t care about that – he doesn’t care what lousy options the woman is left with to improve herself after he has “saved” her.
I never heard of Kristof until I started reading about him on your blog.
I’ve known about and disliked Kristof for a long, long time.
Always seemed to me a typical, dorky, sorta-ugly, Ivy League white guy with an Asian fetish–he married Sheryl WuDunn. But that wasn’t enough on his white man crusade. He was a long-time correspondent for the NYT in China, always acting like he knew better about China than anyone else cause he was a white, Harvard guy, not one of them Asian guys who always enslave their women. Oh, but no, of course he is not racist, cause his wife is a Chinese-American! Bullshit. What an ass.
And, yes, I’m an Asian-American.
I don’t much care for Kristof myself. But I don’t see his marrying a non-white woman to be evidence of much of anything. White men do sometimes marry women who are not white.
Yes, not evidence that he’s not also racist.
This line in Kristof’s column particularly floored me:
“True, many prostitution ads on Backpage are placed by adult women acting on their own without coercion; they’re not my concern.”
Is that so? Then why not do something constructive like encourage Backpage to beef up their screening process to weed out the pimped from the non-coerced? No, that would make too much sense.
There is no way to weed out the “pimped” from the non-coerced, and it’s not the advertising venue’s place to judge anyhow. Should employers refuse to give jobs to men whose wives drive them to take on more overtime than they can handle, or should factories refuse jobs to women whose husbands are unemployed? It’s not the state’s or anyone else’s business to decide which relationships are healthy and which aren’t, and to penalize or restrict those which aren’t.
Okay, so the advertising venue most likely wouldn’t have enough information to judge, fair enough.
But if that’s the case, and I’m not trying to sound like Helen Lovejoy here, what is the best course of action to assist the Jill Brenneman’s of the world, the rare case where a woman actually is living in threat of violence and is unable to help herself?
I guess that goes back to your arguments for decriminalization, so that clients who are smart enough to recognize signs of possible violence can take appropriate steps.
If the woman in your analogy who is forcing her husband to take so much overtime was doing violence to him in order to make him do so, would you not say that is a case for intervention? Not heavy-handed intervention, mind you, but something?
I get the feeling that I’m not quite stating this well enough, but I did want to respond.
No, absolutely not, unless by “intervention” you mean family and friends. They have the right and duty to interfere, but government never has such a right. Nobody but the individual has the right to determine what to do with his own life, even if that’s participating in behavior others consider unhealthy or dangerous such as BDSM, skydiving, extreme sports, smoking, overeating, prostitution, frequent plastic surgery, tattooing, working as a cop, mountain climbing, drinking alcohol…
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, Maggie. But when I mentioned Ms. Brenneman, I was thinking of those who have no friends or family who can intercede. I suppose in that case it ought to be up to observant good samaritans to speak up and act?
Yes, and certainly if a cop thinks he sees actual coercion going on he should question the person he perceives as a victim. But if that person is over 18 and insists there is nothing wrong, at some point the hands of government operatives must be tied. Freedom isn’t free, and giving “authorities” the power to act against the expressed wishes of individuals for any reason gives it the power to do so for all reasons. Does that mean some very unusual cases like Jill’s may slip through the cracks? Unfortunately, yes. But the alternative is what you see all around you.
Maggie, you’re right. Kristof really is a tool. I’m probably not quite as disgusted with him as you are, but on the other hand he hasn’t made a point of libeling my profession.
After reading some of your critiques, I took a closer look at Kristof’s columns. What a smarmy hack. I remember being pretty impressed with some of his columns in 2007 or so, but some of what he has written recently is truly disgraceful. I recently came across a January 2010 column on my Facebook feed, “Our Basic Human Pleasures–Food, Sex and Giving,” in which he praised a semifictionalized Miami man who escaped the rat race for a few weeks by vacationing in Tahiti, writing an elegy for the victims of the Haiti earthquake, and reading “Half the Sky.” Kristof actually plugged his own book in a column on the selfish case for altruism. From what I’ve heard, “Half the Sky” is a decent book, but the manner in which he touted it was unctuous.
It worries me that Kristof has such a following on the left and that his supporters seem unwilling to concede that he has been unethical. When I reposted the altruism column along with a mocking commentary about the White Man’s Burden, the friend who initially posted it accused me of being cynical, as if that were a bad thing. As I see it, the only healthy reaction to such insipid writing in the national newspaper of record is cynicism and scorn. There would be less of that rubbish in our papers if those who wrote it weren’t lavished with praise.
Have you seen his latest? Now he’s trying to “protect” adult Lakota Indians from beer. For their own good, of course.
[…] spreading even more widely, with a number of prominent "trafficking" hysteria profiteers such as Nicholas Kristof, Somaly Mam and The Grey Man caught in outrageous lies. All things being equal I'd say we were on […]
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