Oregon Doctor Tweets That “White People Can Be Exhausting”
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Dr. Esther Choo recently posted some tweets about white people that attracted attention.
While the tweets were visible on her account Sunday morning, later in the day her account indicated that her tweets are protected, meaning they can only be viewed by people she accepts as followers. However, her controversial tweets have been documented elsewhere.
“White people can be exhausting. Just an observation,” Dr. Choo wrote.
She followed that statement up with: “Observation #2: white people are going to prove my point on this very thread.”
She then tweeted, “Observation #3: when people try to convince Twitter that white people are experiencing reverse racism, Twitter understands that is not a thing.”
That tweet included an image of a message from Twitter informing Dr. Choo that someone had complained about her “White people can be exhausting” tweet but Twitter determined that it did not violate their rules:
“We have investigated the reported content and could not identify any violations of the Twitter Rules … or applicable law,” Twitter explained. “Accordingly, we have not taken any action at this time.”
OHSU addressed the situation, pointing out that Dr. Choo posted the comment on her personal account:
(1/2) Because this statement was made on Dr. Choo’s personal Twitter account and she does not purport to represent the views of OHSU, this communication does not violate any OHSU policy or prohibition.
(2/2) We have made Dr. Choo aware of the concerns expressed to us and discussed the impact that public comments such as these can have.
Dr. Choo has previously explained that she has experienced racism while practicing medicine. A column published in 2017 quotes a tweet in which Dr. Choo wrote, “We’ve got a lot of white nationalists in Oregon. So a few times a year, a patient in the ER refuses treatment from me because of my race.”
An email requesting a comment from Dr. Choo had not been answered at the time of this publication.
Alex Nitzberg
Alex Nitzberg is a senior writer for Accuracy in Academia. His writing has been published at Townhall.com, NewsBusters.org and elsewhere. In 2016 he was an intern with the American Journalism Center.
