The world of media and journalism was rocked this week as a prominent staff writer for The New Yorker, Doreen St. Felix, found herself at the center of a growing controversy over a trove of resurfaced social media posts. The posts, many dating back to 2014 and 2015, contained inflammatory statements about white people and the Holocaust, and their rediscovery has ignited fierce debate about accountability, bias, and double standards in the press.
St. Felix, a 33-year-old Haitian-American journalist, has been with The New Yorker since 2017. She is known for her sharp cultural commentary and has contributed to other major outlets such as Vogue and Time magazine. Her accolades include being named to Forbes' "30 Under 30" media list in 2016 and winning a National Magazine Award in 2019. Yet, as reported by Daily Mail, it was not her professional achievements that drew attention this week, but rather a series of old tweets that many have called racist and antisemitic.
The controversy erupted shortly after St. Felix published a provocative piece in The New Yorker on August 2, 2025, criticizing actress Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle jeans campaign. In the article, St. Felix referred to Sweeney as an "Aryan princess" and accused the campaign of promoting a "trashy, dog-whistle atmosphere"—a phrase that itself drew criticism for its charged language. She wrote that Sweeney's fans wanted to "recruit her as a kind of Aryan princess," and declared there were "plenty of reasons" to dislike the ad, according to The New York Post.
But it was St. Felix's own words from years past that quickly became the story. As Breitbart and Daily Mail detailed, a flood of screenshots began circulating on X (formerly Twitter), drawing attention to posts in which St. Felix wrote, "whiteness fills me with a lot of hate" (April 7, 2015), and, "I hate white men. You all are the worst. Go nurse your fucking Oedipal complexes and leave the earth to the browns and the women" (December 24, 2014).
Other tweets were similarly explicit. She claimed, "white people, who literally started a plague because they couldn't wipe their asses, need never say they taught black people hygiene" (June 4, 2015), and, "Of course white people don't bathe. It's in their blood. Their lack of hygiene literally started the bubonic plague, lice, syphilis, etc." (January 13, 2015). In another post, she said, "I would be heartbroken if I had kids with a white guy and they didn't look phenotypically black. I want them to look like me, my parents."
St. Felix's tweets also touched on the Holocaust in ways that many found deeply offensive. She wrote, "the holocaust is the worst thing to happen to black people," and described what she called "the holocaust gesture," suggesting it was "tricknological, when white people invoke the holocaust" because it "allows them to step out of their whiteness and slip on fake oppression." She further claimed, "the holocaust birthed trauma studies" and speculated, "it explains a lot about why we get so many things wrong about how trauma comes." In another post, she argued that "the tolerability of racism is linked to how it's acted out on brown bodies. The holocaust was not tolerable because of white victims so it ended."
As the backlash mounted, St. Felix deleted her X account and scrubbed her social media presence, but not before users—including conservative journalist Chris Rufo—archived and circulated her posts. The move to delete her posts was seen by some as an attempt to avoid accountability, especially since, as Breitbart noted, she offered no public comment or apology. "Rather than say different, after being caught, she ran away without a word … or any consequences," wrote John Nolte for Breitbart.
The controversy has also reignited debates about media bias and double standards. Critics on the right have pointed to what they see as a lack of repercussions for St. Felix, especially given her continued success in prestigious media circles. As Daily Mail observed, "Despite her disdain for capitalism, St. Felix appears to benefit from its fruits. Her address is listed as a $1.3 million home in a gated Brooklyn community which faces a pretty marina." The juxtaposition of her anti-capitalist rhetoric and her affluent lifestyle has not gone unnoticed by social media users.
St. Felix's defenders, however, have argued that the tweets are being weaponized by political opponents to discredit her critiques of mainstream culture and to distract from the substance of her journalism. Some have suggested that the focus on her old tweets is a coordinated effort by right-wing activists, especially in light of her outspoken criticism of the Sydney Sweeney ad campaign.
Still, the content of the tweets themselves has proven difficult to defend. Phrases such as "whiteness must be abolished" and "I write like no white is watching" have been widely condemned across the political spectrum. The posts, which span several years, reveal a pattern of racially charged commentary that many believe is incompatible with the standards of a major publication like The New Yorker.
The incident has also raised questions about hiring practices and editorial oversight at legacy media institutions. As Breitbart pointed out, St. Felix was hired by The New Yorker in 2017, well after some of her most incendiary tweets were posted. "Just a year or so after St. Félix openly expressed these racist and supremacist views, she was still hired by the New Yorker and even earned a place on Forbes '30 Under 30' list," the outlet reported.
St. Felix's career trajectory is notable. Before joining The New Yorker, she was editor-at-large for Lenny Letter, a newsletter created by actress Lena Dunham, and worked as a culture writer for MTV News. She is also a regular contributor to The New Yorker's Critics Notebook column. Her rapid ascent in the world of media, despite the resurfaced tweets, has fueled broader conversations about who gets held accountable for what in American journalism.
As of now, The New Yorker and its parent company Conde Nast have not issued any public statements regarding the controversy, and St. Felix herself has remained silent. Multiple outlets, including Daily Mail, have reached out for comment but received no response.
For many observers, the episode serves as a stark reminder of the enduring power—and peril—of social media. In an age where old posts can resurface at any moment, the lines between personal opinion and professional responsibility are blurrier than ever. Whether this incident will prompt meaningful change in newsroom culture or simply fade from memory remains to be seen, but for now, Doreen St. Felix's story is a cautionary tale for the digital age.
