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The Progressive New Face of 'Boys Will Be Boys'
The Progressive New Face of ‘Boys Will Be Boys’
Aaron Coleman committed revenge porn at age 12. Now he’s 19, and wants a second chance.
Nineteen-year-old Aaron Coleman is a dishwasher and soon, possibly, a left-wing state legislator. He just won an underdog primary campaign in Kansas, campaigning on issues like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, and unseated a seven-term, anti-abortion incumbent in a heavily blue district. Up to this point, his story seems to mirror those of young leftists who took on Establishment candidates and won. But his victory isn’t exactly a cause for progressive celebration: When Coleman was 12, he tried to ruin a girl’s life. “He got one of my nudes and blackmailed me with it and told me if I didn’t send him more he would (send) it to all of my friends and family,” his victim told the Kansas City Star several days after the primary results began to come in. “And when I didn’t send him more, he sent it to everyone I knew.” Two more women say he harassed them brutally while they were teenagers. One attempted suicide.
And Coleman hasn’t exactly been the portrait of penitence. “I’ve moved on,” he recently told a relative of the woman who tried to take her own life. When his past behavior first made the news two weeks ago, he issued a blanket apology, telling the Star, “I made serious mistakes in middle school and I deeply regret and apologize for them.” This week, he said he would drop out of the race, only to take it back days later, in a lengthy, defensive statement in which he decried the press for “putting what I did in middle school” — outraged emphasis his own — “under that kind of national microscope.” It remains unclear whether Coleman has offered a direct or meaningful apology to the women he hurt. From a fawning profile in the Intercept, we learn that he has “reached out to his victims … to make amends.” What does “reaching out” mean in this context? The Intercept piece doesn’t specify, but it does note that none of his victims have responded to him. An accompanying interview doesn’t offer any clarity. Coleman says all three women have him blocked on social media. He notes that his cell-phone number is public, and that they could call him if they wanted.
The initial outrage over Coleman’s behavior set off a debate. To some, his critics were overly harsh, evidence that we live in a culture where no one can ever escape their youthful mistakes. Glenn Greenwald, who both published the Intercept piece and interviewed Coleman, wrote that his story “raises profound and important questions whether adults should be judged by the actions they undertook when they were a child, particularly when they have apologized and expressed remorse.” This argument found traction on Twitter, where a handful of liberals and leftists expressed disbelief that someone so progressive should be “canceled” forever for something he did when he was just a kid. The writer Thomas Chatterton Williams called the backlash “horrific and intolerant.” The Intercept’s Ryan Grim tweeted, incredulously, “Wait, he did this stuff when he was 12? And we’re just done with him forever?”
Only Coleman didn’t just do “this stuff” — calculated, misogynistic harassment — when he was 12 and 14 years old. After he found his online defenders, the full extent of his violent contempt for women grew clearer. In the past few days, new victims have come forward with claims of their own: Coleman’s recent ex-girlfriend, Taylor Passow, told Grim that Coleman choked and slapped her last year. In a more thoroughly reported piece for Medium, Jessica Valenti revealed that Coleman threatened to kill Passow if she ever got pregnant and told her that he hoped she got abducted and raped. Another woman, a young pro-choice activist, told Valenti that Coleman badgered her repeatedly over Twitter after she told him to stop campaigning on her abortion story without her permission.
Aaron Coleman committed revenge porn at age 12. Now he’s 19, and wants a second chance.
Nineteen-year-old Aaron Coleman is a dishwasher and soon, possibly, a left-wing state legislator. He just won an underdog primary campaign in Kansas, campaigning on issues like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, and unseated a seven-term, anti-abortion incumbent in a heavily blue district. Up to this point, his story seems to mirror those of young leftists who took on Establishment candidates and won. But his victory isn’t exactly a cause for progressive celebration: When Coleman was 12, he tried to ruin a girl’s life. “He got one of my nudes and blackmailed me with it and told me if I didn’t send him more he would (send) it to all of my friends and family,” his victim told the Kansas City Star several days after the primary results began to come in. “And when I didn’t send him more, he sent it to everyone I knew.” Two more women say he harassed them brutally while they were teenagers. One attempted suicide.
And Coleman hasn’t exactly been the portrait of penitence. “I’ve moved on,” he recently told a relative of the woman who tried to take her own life. When his past behavior first made the news two weeks ago, he issued a blanket apology, telling the Star, “I made serious mistakes in middle school and I deeply regret and apologize for them.” This week, he said he would drop out of the race, only to take it back days later, in a lengthy, defensive statement in which he decried the press for “putting what I did in middle school” — outraged emphasis his own — “under that kind of national microscope.” It remains unclear whether Coleman has offered a direct or meaningful apology to the women he hurt. From a fawning profile in the Intercept, we learn that he has “reached out to his victims … to make amends.” What does “reaching out” mean in this context? The Intercept piece doesn’t specify, but it does note that none of his victims have responded to him. An accompanying interview doesn’t offer any clarity. Coleman says all three women have him blocked on social media. He notes that his cell-phone number is public, and that they could call him if they wanted.
The initial outrage over Coleman’s behavior set off a debate. To some, his critics were overly harsh, evidence that we live in a culture where no one can ever escape their youthful mistakes. Glenn Greenwald, who both published the Intercept piece and interviewed Coleman, wrote that his story “raises profound and important questions whether adults should be judged by the actions they undertook when they were a child, particularly when they have apologized and expressed remorse.” This argument found traction on Twitter, where a handful of liberals and leftists expressed disbelief that someone so progressive should be “canceled” forever for something he did when he was just a kid. The writer Thomas Chatterton Williams called the backlash “horrific and intolerant.” The Intercept’s Ryan Grim tweeted, incredulously, “Wait, he did this stuff when he was 12? And we’re just done with him forever?”
Only Coleman didn’t just do “this stuff” — calculated, misogynistic harassment — when he was 12 and 14 years old. After he found his online defenders, the full extent of his violent contempt for women grew clearer. In the past few days, new victims have come forward with claims of their own: Coleman’s recent ex-girlfriend, Taylor Passow, told Grim that Coleman choked and slapped her last year. In a more thoroughly reported piece for Medium, Jessica Valenti revealed that Coleman threatened to kill Passow if she ever got pregnant and told her that he hoped she got abducted and raped. Another woman, a young pro-choice activist, told Valenti that Coleman badgered her repeatedly over Twitter after she told him to stop campaigning on her abortion story without her permission.
You can read the rest at New York Magazine's "The Cut".
https://www.thecut.com/2020/08/why-were-progressives-defending-aaron-coleman.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Cut%20-%20August%2027,%202020&utm_term=Subscription%20List%20-%20The%20Cut%20(1%20Year)
20 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
I saw someone else talking about Glenn Greenwald and was worried it might be a link to an Intercept article, which is one of those outlets that I most certainly don't want to give any clicks to. 
Thank you again.
The Cut is an interesting daily read.
