New York Times journalist Sarah Jeong put a Macomb County pastor on blast for harassing her from his church email address.
Jeong posted a screenshot of the email, from Rev. David Muns of Macomb Township's Christian Life Church, on her Twitter account on Tuesday.
"I pretty much never do this but this guy is a 'pastor,'" Jeong wrote on Twitter.
"How about if we took all the little bitter Asian woman and had a lottery and cut their clits like the Muslims do," Muns wrote in the email. "Not a very classy position is it, neither is your trashy little bitter personality towards white men. Only in a world where journalism is controlled by brain dead Liberals do you people even have jobs."
You would be surprised at how many people send me these kinds of messages from their work emails. But using the domain for your online church is a new low, and yes, I am going post your email on the internet.
— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) September 15, 2020
Jeong tells Metro Times that the email was the only interaction she's ever had with Muns, and recognized it as a reference to a "reverse racism" controversy from 2018, when several tweets of hers were taken out of context. The tweets included statements like, "white men are bullshit" and "oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men."
"At the time, I received numerous threats, including one that the New York Times deemed serious enough to file a police report over," Jeong tells MT. "The original tweets, as well as several faked tweets, still circulate on social media, even though it's been two years. I still receive abusive emails and messages on social media that are seemingly in response to the tweets."
One of the fake tweets falsely attributed to Jeong appears to be the one Muns was referring to, reading, "We don't need a military draft. We need a Castration Lottery for white men."
Jeong wrote about the experience here.
Muns admitted to WDIV-TV that he sent the email, saying that he "caved."
"My response is terrible, but what I was responding to was simply reversed of exactly what she posted towards white men and I just reversed it and said, 'How would you feel?'" Muns said.
He said he planned on addressing the controversy during his next congregation.
Jeong says that as a woman in journalism, she gets harassment like that all the time.
"In general, I do not publish the threats and other forms of harassment I receive," she says. "People frequently send me hateful messages using their real names and sometimes even their work emails. It is just a part of my daily life, as it is for many women of color with a visible online presence. Even so, this particular incident has managed to shock me. I am disgusted that a pastor would write something so vile, but more than that, I am appalled that he felt no inhibition about associating his vitriol with his ministry. Religious leaders should live up to the exceptional level of trust that their congregants place in them."
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