I agree that is strong point that such comments trigger some readers.
I imagine that any politically savvy author like this one evaluates the inclusion of jokes involving POC in their editing process today.
As far as intent, I am more inclined to believe the author decided to leave it intentionally, not to endear the conservative reader, but because they believe that while some readers may be offended, that they didn't want to engage in self censorship when they personally didn't see anything objectionable. After all, I think the conservative reader would gloss over this as unremarkable, and only some liberal readers would hear it as a "dog whistle", so they aren't endearing anyone.
I think this is inline with some of the author's other writings which advocate taking responsibility for one's actions and intentions, but not necessarily catering to everyone else's possible reactions and emotions.
That said, I'm usually assume pretty charitable intentions as a reader when it comes to this sort of thing, so I have my own biases.
The point remains that he singled out a latin-american surname in order to google and look for criminals to relate to. That means he expected to find something, and did. Would he think to do the same with an european surname? And more importantly, would it still sound cool and funny to his audience?
I honestly assumed he found the tweet when looking the researcher, and would have made the same joke if the name were Mike Smith. I didn't think the joke was especially entertaining, and don't see it being any more or less cool or funny with a Spanish name.
I could see how if the exact opposite were true, it could be racist.
I imagine that any politically savvy author like this one evaluates the inclusion of jokes involving POC in their editing process today.
As far as intent, I am more inclined to believe the author decided to leave it intentionally, not to endear the conservative reader, but because they believe that while some readers may be offended, that they didn't want to engage in self censorship when they personally didn't see anything objectionable. After all, I think the conservative reader would gloss over this as unremarkable, and only some liberal readers would hear it as a "dog whistle", so they aren't endearing anyone.
I think this is inline with some of the author's other writings which advocate taking responsibility for one's actions and intentions, but not necessarily catering to everyone else's possible reactions and emotions.
That said, I'm usually assume pretty charitable intentions as a reader when it comes to this sort of thing, so I have my own biases.