Washington Post columnist and opinion editor Karen Attiah on Monday said she was fired last week for "white men" posts she made following the assassination of conservative leader Charlie Kirk.

In a Substack post, Attiah said the Post fired her over Bluesky social network posts it called "unacceptable" and "gross misconduct."

In one, Attiah accused Kirk of espousing "hatred and violence."

In the post titled "The Washington Post Fired Me — But My Voice Will Not Be Silenced," Attiah said she "spoke out against hatred and violence in America — and it cost me my job."

At issue are the posts she made to Bluesky after Kirk was assassinated at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University in Orem on Wednesday.

"Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence," she posted in one. 

In another, Attiah wrote, "white America is not going to do what it needs to do to get rid of the guns in their country."

In yet another, she posted, "It goes beyond for Black care and forgiveness for white violence. ... They will not only still kill black people, but they will make the killers rich and famous," the Daily Mail reported.

Attiah defended her posts, writing, "My only direct reference to Kirk was one post — his own words on record," which propagated a distortion of what Kirk actually said. Attiah, using direct quotes, attributed this 12-year-old remark to Kirk: "Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's slot."

Kirk's actual words, spoken on July 13, 2023, directed at four Black women — former MSNBC host Joy Reid, former first lady Michelle Obama, then-Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — were: "You do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's slot."

The Post's own policies and standards say, "Post journalists should be civil on social media and treat people with respect." 

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