If this looks familiar, it probably is. Originally, I tweeted an abridged version of this text on 6/21/2025, before linking to an open-source Google Docs in which I expanded my apology for those interested in hearing my side of things. My aim for publishing it on the website isn’t intended to engender sympathy or cause friction, nor is it a publicity stunt. It’s just a late-ish-night action I take simply for the sake of permanence and further transparency–if that’s at all possible at this point–I’m unclear if it is. If its being here sparks further dialogue around the topic or my actions, so be it.
Libre is the beast with the blue soul. I simply feed it my debit card every month and take care of it’s rather enormous glitches.
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Saturday, June 21, 2025
Before all of this happened, I joked on here, at some point, about Year Two being Libre’s adolescence. Some weird, covert premonition for this growing pain we’re experiencing, maybe, but I’ll continue calling it growing pain against the seriousness of this tweet as our only form of defense. I don’t know what else to call it for fear of calling it what I fear most: it’s goodbye. Other, heartier defense isn’t deserved yet and never will be, but I’ll get on with what I’m saying: in light of events this past week, Libre has deservedly been criticized for its role in online discourse centered around the precarious nature of heritability. Data collectors can be the enemy, I fell for it, and in the process, shamed both myself and the magazine’s reputation, which resulted in placing our staff’s careers on the line–so grossly unfair, and, from where I’m sitting in bed, an unredeemable action on my part. Promising new science poses the pretty threat of undoing one’s established ethics, so easily, really, it sometimes feels like the whole world’s a scam. Our audience has swiftly and, I fear, accurately, cited eugenics, phrenology, and white supremacy as incentives for the post. I don’t think you want an apology from me, and punting some excuse would only do further harm, agitate, and, in the very worst of my catastrophic-thinking-episodes, cause additional public distancing.
Put simply:
1. I fear and expect a disintegration of good faith in what we stand for; more complexly,
2. I fear fissuring of ethical attitudes and established parlance, and wreckage of communal ties Libre very dearly relies upon for its existence.
Libre’s mission is heavily mutable, desirous of erosion: the sort that’s applied through public pressures and understandably vitriolic censure. The meteoric change Libre requires at this moment in time—critical, life-altering—can only be achieved through active pacing and frank inquiry of what we publish, great-hearted discussion, radical patience, and the gallant persistence of its staff and supporters. We need persistence in thawing down the prototype of what this little magazine bases its heartbeat on, persistence in understanding its present-day flaws and failings, and, finally, persistence in lending credence around its rapid-fire growth toward better, more lucid ideologies that maintain both precision and opacity through continued, welcomed public scrutiny.
Despite its minor platform, Libre should sometimes shut up. My mistake was applying my tone-deaf understanding of a theory and new science to the feed, composing a tweet that was thoughtless of its overtones, ignorant of its racial undertones, in all respects asinine, and unintentionally (though I’m remiss to view it otherwise, now, thanks to the guidance of a few astute souls) racist and bigoted. I did the wrong kind of research, and failed to view its findings from a global standpoint, which is something the magazine prides itself on, lays shy and tentative claims to.
In this time of unrest, I don’t know what I was doing or thinking and can only say to you now that I wasn’t doing much of either. That’s when you get offline, right? You don’t abuse the platform. You don’t recklessly post. If anything, you sit and listen. By posting the article, I promoted something erroneously right-wing; through my promotion of it, I stand to ruin this publication’s chance at proper maturity, while unintentionally influencing others who still hold faith in what Libre has to say. I’m damned, and am writing this in mild hopes of you hearing me clearly when I say that I was wrong and will stand corrected for many months to come. You want something greater than I can give at the moment. I worry a promise would escalate, and a rebuttal would negate any chance of this publication coming back from this, that a request for public negotiation would be met with laughter. Libre needs your help.
We know the story, I’ve told it before in instances of annoyance and paranoia. I’ll make it brief. Libre’s impetus was a delicate and excruciating one. Libre bears the markings of an endemic familial mental health condition, some 17 years in steady existence, that has been exacerbated, exploited, misdiagnosed, and misrepresented by doctors, therapists, social workers, and friends. This amount of residual, continuously applied trauma ruins a life, ruins a family, ruins that victim’s honest chance at liberty, causing alongside it a disability unresponsive to medication and therapies, one that cripples not only the body and brain but the soul, if you believe in such things. I do. I believe in Libre’s soul—or, for those of you who prefer scholarship and critical theory over the warm dimness of the ephemeral—I believe in this publication’s mission.
I ask for forgiveness. I’ll base my next actions on the community’s reactions, and consider re-opening our publication schedule next week, or the next, or the next after; compassion is a tricky business and something I feel wrong asking from you. I ache most for our contributors and for our plans involving them. They will remain on hold until I’m given the green light. Please know that I welcome any / all dialogue around the article itself, criticism around the way it was handled (fumblingly), and suggestions of what I can do to make it up to community members in ways that prove Libre’s dedication to groundbreaking mental health advocacy and celebration.
losing our grip on purpose 