Author's book publication cancelled after a tweet reporting on a WMATA employee eating on the metro

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should the Metro employee's race make any difference?

Agreed. The trains get dunked up with food and it attracts vermin. The metro employee is in the wrong and to bring race into this is completely off the rails (pun intended).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So - a DC woman tweeted out a photo of a uniformed metro employee eating on the Metro, noting that Metro prohibits eating on the metro, and complaining about a metro employee violating the same rule metro employees ask riders to respect. The tweeter is Arab American and the metro employee she complained about is a black woman. Now her publisher and book distributor are cancelling her novel's publication as a result. (See Post article below: https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2019/05/11/dc-pundit-shamed-metro-worker-eating-train-now-her-book-deal-is-jeopardy/?utm_term=.804898e5dbb8).

So, I agree her tweet was unnecessary and thoughtless: metro employees are low wage workers who get very short breaks, and this poor metro employee could now get fired.

But a) Metro does enforce its no eating policy, often in absurd and horrible ways, often against people of color, so is it really inherently horrendous for the tweeting author to highlight that this is a bit hypocritical? (see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/metro-transit-police-arrest-teenager-for-carrying-chips-and-lollipop-into-station/2016/10/19/1360a014-9627-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html?utm_term=.fe6adc99091b)

And b) If she had instead posted a photo of a uniformed DC cop breaking a law that other people go to jail for breaking (maybe having an open container of alcohol, or peeing in an alley), would everyone be calling her a racist if the cop in her photo was African America - as opposed to thanking her for highlighting police hypocrisy?

And c) Her book was cancelled, WTF? Even if you think her tweet was completely thoughtless, should this really lead to her book being nixed?

I consider myself very much on the left and I think both commuters and metro employees should be able to eat on the metro without fear of arrest or discipline, and I also think low wage workers get a shitty deal, and low wage African American female workers get a particularly shitty deal. But I also think it's frightening that this tweeter's NOVEL has been cancelled because of a tweet that was, at worst, thoughtless, for which she has already apologized.

Am I missing something?

While we don’t want to jump on the race bandwagon, many Arabs are racist. They will often be obsequious to white people but dismissive or outright rude to black people. Is this writer racist? I don’t know. Would she have taken a picture of a white employee eating? I don’t know the answer to that either. I do have an issue with her publishing the employee’s picture. Regardless of the fact that she was breaking the rules, she doesn’t deserve to be shamed publicly. Metro has a system in place for complaints, and she should have gone that route.

See the bolded statement. That one gross generalization about an entire group negates the rest of your entire post. Too bad, because you had a point there when you say she should have filed a complaint rather than posting online. But blathering that "many Arabs are racist" is so vastly general and nasty that it paints you pretty poorly. Fill in any other group for "Arabs" there and it's an equally stupid generalization, and those kinds of blanket statements only make today's antagonistic environment worse, never better.

I’ve lived in the Middle East for 11 years, so I know a little more than you, and this is not some gross generalization. I’ve witnessed it, black Arabs have told me about their experiences, and other Arabs have discussed it with me. This is not ‘blathering’ but something that actually happens. I did not say all Arabs; I said many.

What my Arab friends tell me is that American blacks are the most racist people they have met in their lives.

Not American whites or Latinos. Blacks.

Having worked in several Arab countries, I found that Arabs are terribly racist. The poor guest workers are treated terribly and exploited.

DP. Re: the bold above: You didn't say all, you said many, so it's just fine to make your generalization? Fine! If I say "many whites are white supremacists" that's OK? "Many blacks are racists"? That OK too? You realize it's still a gross generalization of any group, and "many" rather than "all" does not make it acceptable?

[Anonymous]

The union employee isn’t working an 8 hour day with a 20 min break. Gmfb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See something say something is about TERRORISM, dumbasses! Not people eating.

Someone wearing uniform and openly breaking well-known rules could well be a security concern.

Yes by all means report this woman to the NSA while you're at it. She was clearly thisclose to blowing up the train.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:For those of you who think the employee was the problem:

Barry Hobson, the chief of staff for the Metro workers union — Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 — said in a statement the Metro employee was taking her meal break while in transit from one assignment to another. The statement notes operators have "an average of 20 minutes to consume a meal and get to their next access point to ensure all buses and trains are on time, safe, and ready to serve the riding public.”

From the article posted by OP.

Oh, if the metro UNION says so, we all must be wrong! I don't see how this is an issue outside of the culture now where everyone has to be offended all the time. Metro worker breaking Metro rules, rules which metro enforces (or used to enforce) arbitrarily anyway. Rather than hold metro employees to a higher standard, the internets seem to think a-ok here and the person pointing out the double-standard is the problem. Race wasn't an issue until the offended parties (including WaPo) made it one - it wasn't an issue for the woman pointing out the rule breaking.

If you don’t like the way an employee is behaving, you contact the company. You don’t take that person’s picture without permission and then post it for all the world to see. I don’t know if it was racially motivated or not, but Ms. Tynes’ behavior was unethical, and I don’t blame the publisher for dropping her. She did this to herself. Her publisher is in the business of making money first and foremost, and no company wants to be associated with someone who will affect its profit margins.

I think there's an issue of proportionality, as well.

In this case, eating on a train isn't great but it's not like the Metro employee was kicking a service dog or screaming profanities at an infant. The transgression was extremely minor - and taking the photo, tagging WMATA, seemed mostly like the author was irritated that the Metro employee wasn't deferential enough after being called out for eating. The author's reaction seemed disproportionately harsh and petty - and could have had serious consequences. It seemed like punching down, too. I think that's part of what people are reacting to - like why the h*ll would you make life difficult for a Metro employee over such a minor thing?

As for the book being canceled - blach, I don't know what I think of that. I do think the author should be publicly shamed. Losing her book contract also seems disproportionately harsh. But the publisher must have just freaked out bout what they worried would be a PR nightmare if they kept her. I think if she'd immediately apologized and explained that she was in fact having a terrible day and took it out wrongly on this Metro employee, and she'd like to make up for it, it might have blown over.

Anyway, as a communications professional she should have known ebtter than to issue that tweet.

DP. To the PP -- do you actually use Metro? To commute, not just occasionally? I'd bet that the author had seen people eating on trains many times and this time -- an employee clearly having a full-on meal -- was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

When what you call "extremely minor" infractions of eating add up and add up, the result is rats, mice, stench, trash. Have you ever ridden subways in other cities where eating is not only allowed, it's done all the time? It's sickening and you can watch the rats scurrying along platforms and see the food trash left on seats and on floors. Metro is far from perfect but at least it's not as nasty as many other subways. But in the minds of many here, it's fine to let "minor" infractions go because it's just the one time, right? And the next time will be just one little infraction. And the time after that. No matter who's doing it.

I know the union official said the employees have only 20 minutes to eat. What is the union doing about that crappy situation for the employees?

But that's not what the author said. What she said is that THIS person was eating, and then told her to mind her business. And that, she just could not abide. So she took a picture of the woman, put it up on twitter, tagged the woman's employer, and thought the woman would get what was coming to her finally at last.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So - a DC woman tweeted out a photo of a uniformed metro employee eating on the Metro, noting that Metro prohibits eating on the metro, and complaining about a metro employee violating the same rule metro employees ask riders to respect. The tweeter is Arab American and the metro employee she complained about is a black woman. Now her publisher and book distributor are cancelling her novel's publication as a result. (See Post article below: https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2019/05/11/dc-pundit-shamed-metro-worker-eating-train-now-her-book-deal-is-jeopardy/?utm_term=.804898e5dbb8).

So, I agree her tweet was unnecessary and thoughtless: metro employees are low wage workers who get very short breaks, and this poor metro employee could now get fired.

But a) Metro does enforce its no eating policy, often in absurd and horrible ways, often against people of color, so is it really inherently horrendous for the tweeting author to highlight that this is a bit hypocritical? (see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/metro-transit-police-arrest-teenager-for-carrying-chips-and-lollipop-into-station/2016/10/19/1360a014-9627-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html?utm_term=.fe6adc99091b)

And b) If she had instead posted a photo of a uniformed DC cop breaking a law that other people go to jail for breaking (maybe having an open container of alcohol, or peeing in an alley), would everyone be calling her a racist if the cop in her photo was African America - as opposed to thanking her for highlighting police hypocrisy?

And c) Her book was cancelled, WTF? Even if you think her tweet was completely thoughtless, should this really lead to her book being nixed?

I consider myself very much on the left and I think both commuters and metro employees should be able to eat on the metro without fear of arrest or discipline, and I also think low wage workers get a shitty deal, and low wage African American female workers get a particularly shitty deal. But I also think it's frightening that this tweeter's NOVEL has been cancelled because of a tweet that was, at worst, thoughtless, for which she has already apologized.

Am I missing something?

While we don’t want to jump on the race bandwagon, many Arabs are racist. They will often be obsequious to white people but dismissive or outright rude to black people. Is this writer racist? I don’t know. Would she have taken a picture of a white employee eating? I don’t know the answer to that either. I do have an issue with her publishing the employee’s picture. Regardless of the fact that she was breaking the rules, she doesn’t deserve to be shamed publicly. Metro has a system in place for complaints, and she should have gone that route.

See the bolded statement. That one gross generalization about an entire group negates the rest of your entire post. Too bad, because you had a point there when you say she should have filed a complaint rather than posting online. But blathering that "many Arabs are racist" is so vastly general and nasty that it paints you pretty poorly. Fill in any other group for "Arabs" there and it's an equally stupid generalization, and those kinds of blanket statements only make today's antagonistic environment worse, never better.

I’ve lived in the Middle East for 11 years, so I know a little more than you, and this is not some gross generalization. I’ve witnessed it, black Arabs have told me about their experiences, and other Arabs have discussed it with me. This is not ‘blathering’ but something that actually happens. I did not say all Arabs; I said many.

What my Arab friends tell me is that American blacks are the most racist people they have met in their lives.

Not American whites or Latinos. Blacks.

Having worked in several Arab countries, I found that Arabs are terribly racist. The poor guest workers are treated terribly and exploited.

DP. Re: the bold above: You didn't say all, you said many, so it's just fine to make your generalization? Fine! If I say "many whites are white supremacists" that's OK? "Many blacks are racists"? That OK too? You realize it's still a gross generalization of any group, and "many" rather than "all" does not make it acceptable?

Take a trip to the ME. Trust me, you won’t be so indignant afterwards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See something say something is about TERRORISM, dumbasses! Not people eating.

Someone wearing uniform and openly breaking well-known rules could well be a security concern.

Yes by all means report this woman to the NSA while you're at it. She was clearly thisclose to blowing up the train.

Yes with explosives disguised as food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, let's stipulate that her tweet (for which she has apologized) was unnecessary and thoughtless. Let's even go further and say that her tweet reeked of racial and class entitlement.

Stipulate all that. But: Why has her book contract been cancelled?

In exactly what way is social justice enhanced by preventing her novel from being published?

That's the kind of sick sh*t that happens in totalitarian societies. Twitter mobs go after you; your friends and colleagues instantly desert you and condemn you; you become a non-person.

This does not advance racial justice. It just adds another injustice on top of the first.

I dispute the bolded. People go on social media all the time to complain about service. I have no issue with her tweet.

Except the woman wasn't in service. She was a fellow rider, probably heading to her early morning shift.

Please try to be a little more intelligent: the service is keeping the Metro clean. The employee was not doing her part, that is, she was caught breaking the rule of not eating on the Metro. What's worse, she was in uniform, therefore representing the company (it doesn't matter whether her shift had started or not).
She totally deserves to be called out.

The publisher has stupidly put itself in a weird situation where because it's so afraid of being called racist, it actually punishes the person who complained about rule-breaking, in an effort to defend the rule-breaker. Surreal and nonsensical.

NP +1

It's actually racist to NOT hold African Americans to the same standard. It's like a public statement/acknowledgement that black people aren't civilized, and just can't help themselves but break the rules and eat and make a mess wherever they want and so let's just try to ignore it. Kind of like how people make excuses for small children.

It's frankly insulting. And it's sad that society has come down this far that literally everything is racist now unless proven otherwise.


It's sad, really.

I agree with this post.

The fact that so many people are siding with the metro employee is concerning.

Why have rules if half of the population does not have to follow them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, let's stipulate that her tweet (for which she has apologized) was unnecessary and thoughtless. Let's even go further and say that her tweet reeked of racial and class entitlement.

Stipulate all that. But: Why has her book contract been cancelled?

In exactly what way is social justice enhanced by preventing her novel from being published?

That's the kind of sick sh*t that happens in totalitarian societies. Twitter mobs go after you; your friends and colleagues instantly desert you and condemn you; you become a non-person.

This does not advance racial justice. It just adds another injustice on top of the first.

I dispute the bolded. People go on social media all the time to complain about service. I have no issue with her tweet.

Except the woman wasn't in service. She was a fellow rider, probably heading to her early morning shift.

Please try to be a little more intelligent: the service is keeping the Metro clean. The employee was not doing her part, that is, she was caught breaking the rule of not eating on the Metro. What's worse, she was in uniform, therefore representing the company (it doesn't matter whether her shift had started or not).
She totally deserves to be called out.

The publisher has stupidly put itself in a weird situation where because it's so afraid of being called racist, it actually punishes the person who complained about rule-breaking, in an effort to defend the rule-breaker. Surreal and nonsensical.

NP +1

It's actually racist to NOT hold African Americans to the same standard. It's like a public statement/acknowledgement that black people aren't civilized, and just can't help themselves but break the rules and eat and make a mess wherever they want and so let's just try to ignore it. Kind of like how people make excuses for small children.

It's frankly insulting. And it's sad that society has come down this far that literally everything is racist now unless proven otherwise.


It's sad, really.

I agree with this post.

The fact that so many people are siding with the metro employee is concerning.

Why have rules if half of the population does not have to follow them?

You have to exercise discretion, basically. Be smart, be empathetic, be judicious - and if you can't be those things, then just think how you will feel when your reportage turns up on social media, and think: will I look like the good guy here or the bad guy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See something say something is about TERRORISM, dumbasses! Not people eating.

Someone wearing uniform and openly breaking well-known rules could well be a security concern.

Yes by all means report this woman to the NSA while you're at it. She was clearly thisclose to blowing up the train.

Yes with explosives disguised as food.

I feared for my life just looking at the photo, frankly. I thought that she might be able to make my computer explode over the internet. I'm so glad Author Lady alerted the authorities!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See something say something is about TERRORISM, dumbasses! Not people eating.

Someone wearing uniform and openly breaking well-known rules could well be a security concern.

Yes by all means report this woman to the NSA while you're at it. She was clearly thisclose to blowing up the train.

Yes with explosives disguised as food.

I feared for my life just looking at the photo, frankly. I thought that she might be able to make my computer explode over the internet. I'm so glad Author Lady alerted the authorities!

we should all be on the alert for these food bombers.

[Anonymous]

MYOB, go to work, be a good person, and stay off social media.

problem solved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who made her the Metro police?

What you’re missing is that black people cannot and do not do this stuff—acting as though they are the enforcement unit for shared public space. It’s entitled behavior.

Excuse me. Who’s engaging in “entitled behavior”? The Metro employee in uniform who chooses to break the law in front of other passengers. He’s betting that no one will call him out. Talk about entitled. Metro should discipline him. Since when does race give one a pass from obeying the law, especially when one is an employee and needs to set an example for the public?

Metro used to be quite clean. But in recent months, I’ve sat on spilled milkshake on a seat, stepped over rolling cans and bottles on trains, and routinely see French fries and other litter in the Metro. It’s disgusting and unsanitary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MYOB, go to work, be a good person, and stay off social media.

problem solved.

I agree with this but I also think the attacks on the author are beyond overwrought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who made her the Metro police?

What you’re missing is that black people cannot and do not do this stuff—acting as though they are the enforcement unit for shared public space. It’s entitled behavior.

Excuse me. Who’s engaging in “entitled behavior”? The Metro employee in uniform who chooses to break the law in front of other passengers. He’s betting that no one will call him out. Talk about entitled. Metro should discipline him. Since when does race give one a pass from obeying the law, especially when one is an employee and needs to set an example for the public?

Metro used to be quite clean. But in recent months, I’ve sat on spilled milkshake on a seat, stepped over rolling cans and bottles on trains, and routinely see French fries and other litter in the Metro. It’s disgusting and unsanitary.

You haven’t even read the story, evidenced by you saying the metro employee is a he, so shut up. You can’t contribute if you won’t even read the damn story.