Sanders Campaign Hires Staffer With History of Slurs Against marginalized groups; Also Body Shaming & Ableism(Up: Campaign has parted ways with him)

[Deleted member 3896]

The Sanders campaign has hired Darius Khalil Gordon as Deputy Director of Constituency Organizing.

Gordon's Twitter has a long history of using a variety of slurs, none of which I want to type out myself. But they include wildly offensive anti-Semitic tropes, ableism, homophobic rhetoric and more. It's pretty disturbing stuff and it looks like Gordon's taken to deleting and hiding some of these tweets now.

This isn't the first time the Sanders Campaign has failed to vet staffers and has thusly hired homophobic, racist and incredibly problematic staff.

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/12/06/bernie-sanders-aide-darius-khalil-gordon-tweets/

*EDIT* Update: He's been fired.

Bernie Sanders campaign parts ways with staffer after report of homophobic and anti-Semitic tweets | CNN Politics

Bernie Sanders' campaign has parted ways with a newly hired staffer after a conservative website unearthed a series of tweets allegedly from the staffer that contained anti-Semitic and homophobic language.

www.cnn.com

 

[Deleted member 18944]

Christ these tweets are bad. I really bet he's out by the end of the week.

 

[How About No]

OOF

 

[Slayven]

Jesus christ, they were worse than i thought, and 3 times as stupid

 

[Matsukaze]

What a joke of a vetting process. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would have caught that immediately.

This guy needs to get tossed out at once.

 

[Slayven]

He didn't delete the tweets, he nuked the whole account

 

[Hey Please]

Well now that light has been shone on this, perhaps the campaign will take appropriate steps. Employers should really do social media search for what is publicly available.

 

[JCizzle]

Obviously this is not ok behavior. However, since the Tweets seem to be from 2010, I'm hoping he was young at that point and has grown since then and no longer holds those beliefs. Beyond that, why the hell do people seeking public positions not delete their Twitter history? It seems like these situations happen almost weekly now.

 

[Eumi]

I'd be willing to humour a "these were a decade ago and I've changed" thing if he wasn't trying to delete them. That just shows where his priorities are.

 

[julian]

Those tweets are nearly a decade old. How old is this person? I don't love judging an adult for being an idiot as a kid....but I legitimately don't know if that's the case here.

 

[Seven of Nine]

Didn't this happen to another of his previous hires? It is odd that they didn't then adjust to check social media before finalizing new campaign staff.

 

[Dream Machine]

Those are more aggressive than I expected. How old was the dude 10 years ago? Sounds like an edgy teen

 

[WedgeX]

I feel like a Deputy Director of Constituency Organizing would be high up enough to really vet, but I do not know their staff structure.

 

[Pandora012]

He didn't delete the tweets, he nuked the whole account

Click to shrink...

Jokes on him, the internet remembers.

 

[platocplx]

Doesnt excuse the tweets. But im certain anyone who was using twitter around that time were probally all on some juvenile shit. I absolutely know I was.

 

[Shaun Solo]

I'd be willing to humour a "these were a decade ago and I've changed" thing if he wasn't trying to delete them. That just shows where his priorities are.

Click to shrink...

Not defending what's written in those tweets, but you are fucked whether you try to delete them or leave them up. There's no winning in that situation.

 

[LBsquared]

How old was the person who wrote that vile shit? Also, why didn't you vet them better? Young people shouldn't be judged solely on tweets from when they were young, but if you know the guy/gal said something that horrible, when you hire them you should demand they release a statement explaining themselves. Or just dont hire them.

 

[Baji Boxer]

Jesus that's bad, wtf. Also, how old is he? Was that one post talking shit to Junior High kids?

 

[Kirblar]

It's not just the language, it's the sentiments they express, which are far, far worse and not the sort of thing you magically grow out of unless you're forced to confront them.

 

[captmcblack]

Those are old tweets, and I'd be interested in knowing how old this guy was then.

But I also know that "this is old" is generally not taken as an excuse when talking about other people in every spectrum of discussion, political or otherwise...so there's that. Maybe the campaign will address it? Who knows.

 

[Kill3r7]

Apart from this whole situation, there must be an issue with the screening process because we keep seeing this happening over and over. Firms whose entire business model, charging hundreds if not thousands of dollars for their vetting services, fail over and over again.

 

[collige]

I don't understand how seemingly everyone fails to do basic vetting. It's flabbergasting.

 

[platocplx]

Not defending what's written in those tweets, but you are fucked whether you try to delete them or leave them up. There's no winning in that situation.

Click to shrink...

Yep, regardless and honestly im more like are they saying this shit today and not when they were being a turd in highschool at the early beginnings of twitter when no one knew the ramifications of it.

Overall, At least should address it as "nothing excuses what i said at that age, but i am not that same person anymore." because I know I was a turd at HS age.

 

[Masterz1337]

I'd bet he didn't even remember that stuff. I have a friend who lost her job due to 8 year old tweets about smoking weed and bitch ass hoes she posted in high school, to an account she hadn't even logged into in years.

Not defending what's there, but that's probably why that stuff was still up rather than deleted. Hopefully the staffer was a kid when he did it and he's completely changed, if not fire his ass.

 

[Sordid Plebeian]

Well he's not gonna be employed for much longer

 

[Invisible Cities]

Tweeting about Junior High suggests he was in his early to mid teens at the time.

 

[Gashprex]

Staffer 1: Think we should check his twitter account just to be sure?

Staffer 2: NAH - it will be fine this day and age, nobody on twitter checks past tweets

Staffer 1: Sounds good, lets do this

Also, I really don't think it has some deeper meaning beyond poor vetting unless they keep him around.

 

[Richter1887]

Holy shit, what the hell iss the Sanders Campaign even doing? How could you fuck up this much?

 

[julian]

Not defending what's written in those tweets, but you are fucked whether you try to delete them or leave them up. There's no winning in that situation.

Click to shrink...

It's much much simpler to just nuke it than comb through and hope you caught anything offensive.

 

[sredgrin]

Judging by the fact he is trash talking a Jr high school in one of the tweets, he's either young teens in those or a very weird older person.

If he was extremely young, I can see a bit of lenience, but still, just like, search your hires shit for common words at the very least. And a good reminder to keep dumbass kids off social media.

 

[Eumi]

Not defending what's written in those tweets, but you are fucked whether you try to delete them or leave them up. There's no winning in that situation.

Click to shrink...

I dunno, I think confronting it with a genuine acknowledgement that they were fucked up a pointing out what would hopefully be existing evidence of having improved as a person would sate most of the people coming at this in good faith.

But that's basically a pointless hypothetical now, since that's not what happened. This guy tried to hide it, which to me, whilst I guess not necessarily proof that the growth hasn't happened, definitely shows that he has the absolute wrong attitude as to how to deal with this stuff, and should not be part of anyone's campaign staff. His actions have cemented that, yeah, he's still pretty shitty in this respect.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

My mind read the thread title as "Sarah Sanders" and it made perfect sense.

 

[Deleted member 31817]

It doesn't matter how old he was, if he doesn't apologize for them and instead chooses to delete them then it's still a problem.

 

[lmcfigs]

I think it depends on how old he was when he wrote those tweets.

 

[UnpopularBlargh]

Relevant:

 

[BringBackSonics]

The Sanders campaign has hired Darius Khalil Gordon as Deputy Director of Constituency Organizing.

Gordon's Twitter has a long history of using a variety of slurs, none of which I want to type out myself. But they include wildly offensive anti-Semitic tropes, ableism, homophobic rhetoric and more. It's pretty disturbing stuff and it looks like Gordon's taken to deleting and hiding some of these tweets now.

This isn't the first time the Sanders Campaign has failed to vet staffers and has thusly hired homophobic, racist and incredibly problematic staff.

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/12/06/bernie-sanders-aide-darius-khalil-gordon-tweets/

Click to shrink...

Who is in charge of vetting his staff? good lord

 

[FTF]

Jesus christ, they were worse than i thought, and 3 times as stupid

Click to shrink...

Same and I expect him to fired very quickly.

 

[Deleted member 82]

On the one hand, these are really fucking bad tweets. OMG
On the other hand, they're from 8-10 years ago.
On the other other hand, are there any signs that the dude has changed and made amends for those?
On the other other other hand, I'm skeptical of Twitter accounts like the one this comes from. Looking at what she tweets, she seems overzealous in her Sanders/"Berniebro"-bashing, and, in the name of feminism and destroying the patriarchy, seems to be fine with every female candidate no matter how shady or milquetoast they might be as Democrats. Like, she'll tweet about Hillary Clinton supposedly destroying Bernie, or Kamala Harris running again next election, or Warren running laps around everyone else. Like, yeah, criticize Sanders and his staff for having an awful vetting process, they deserve it, but let's not act like the alternatives are your left-wing saviors either. But what do I know, I'm not American. Feel free to school me if I'm oversimplifying things.
On the final hand... I don't know.

 

[jack_package_200]

Not as bad as that video editor they hired and immediately fired a month or two back who made a racist MLK Jr video

Vetting should not be this hard

 

[Tukarrs]

If you're about to get out of college and are applying for jobs, nuke your social media.

I've seen a lot of edgy posts from vetting people.

 

[Deleted member 31817]

Also apparently he was 22

So

 

[Stinkles]

Those tweets are nearly a decade old. How old is this person? I don't love judging an adult for being an idiot as a kid....but I legitimately don't know if that's the case here.

Click to shrink...

I'm fine with forgiving youthful indiscretions but there are plenty of qualified candidates who didn't throw those terms around and that's a perfectly good reason to hire them instead- all things being equal- but his inept reaction shows incompetence as well as a history of basically every hatred you can think of.

and to be honest I think it's a deep sign of a serious character flaw rather than a couple of misguided tweets.

 

[Maquiladora]

What a piece of shit.

 

[Deleted member 11413]

Those are old tweets, and I'd be interested in knowing how old this guy was then.

But I also know that "this is old" is generally not taken as an excuse when talking about other people in every spectrum of discussion, political or otherwise...so there's that. Maybe the campaign will address it? Who knows.

Click to shrink...

How old the tweets are is a relevant detail depending on how old he was at the time. If he was a minor then it's a very different scenario than if he was, say, 25.

 

[Hours Left]

Bernie continuously surrounds himself with absolutely horrible people.

This should be a gigantic warning sign to anyone who supports him.

 

[BringBackSonics]

Not defending what's written in those tweets, but you are fucked whether you try to delete them or leave them up. There's no winning in that situation.

Click to shrink...

He should have just nuked his account before he accepted the position. Maybe that is a new rule. Must delete twitter account if you want to work for political campaign

 

[Deleted member 3896]

I think it depends on how old he was when he wrote those tweets.

Click to shrink...

I think it would be better to not hire someone with such a hateful and disturbing social media history especially when the campaign has done this before, fairly recently. Why not err on the side of someone who doesn't have a trail of slurs behind them?

 

[Swiggins]

I don't understand how seemingly everyone fails to do basic vetting. It's flabbergasting.

Click to shrink...

Most standard vetting processes only go back 5 years or so when it comes to social media, a lot of these tweets are almost a decade old.

It's not an excuse, but that's probably how he slipped by.

 

[lmcfigs]

Also apparently he was 22

So

Click to shrink...

he was 22 when he wrote those tweets?

 

[Sensei]

what the hell does "asian mans lifespan" even mean

 

[BringBackSonics]

Also apparently he was 22

So

Click to shrink...

Well. thats the end of that. Which staffer is responsible for vetting people? Maybe they need to find a new job as well.

 

[chaostrophy]

On the other other other hand, I'm skeptical of Twitter accounts like the one this comes from. Looking at what she tweets, she seems overzealous in her Sanders/"Berniebro"-bashing, and, in the name of feminism and destroying the patriarchy, seems to be fine with every female candidate no matter how shady or milquetoast they might be as Democrats. Like, she'll tweet about Hillary Clinton supposedly destroying Bernie, or Kamala Harris running again next election, or Warren running laps around everyone else. Like, yeah, criticize Sanders and his staff for having an awful vetting process, they deserve it, but let's not act like the alternatives are your left-wing saviors either. But what do I know, I'm not American. Feel free to school me if I'm oversimplifying things.
On the final hand... I don't know.

Click to shrink...

Also it looks like the original source is the Washington Free Beacon, a right-wing paper.