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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PSA:
Metro workers are NOT low wage workers. jobs at Metro are great jobs for often low/unskilled workers.

OP’s white privilege is showing. To say that Metro jobs for African American women are particularly shitty means you consider them shitty jibs. Do you say that about every job that isn’t professional?

[Anonymous]

Her tweet just seemed mean-spirited and vindictive. Yes, the employee was eating on the train, but is it necessary to report her to her boss and try to get her fired? How would that help or serve anyone?

I don’t blame her publishers for declining to associate with someone like that. No one is obligated to publish her work. She should have just sat there and looked at her phone.

[Anonymous]

Metro has a rule about not eating on trains. As a metro employee, one should be aware of this. The race does not matter, rules are rules and this applies to everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Her tweet just seemed mean-spirited and vindictive. Yes, the employee was eating on the train, but is it necessary to report her to her boss and try to get her fired? How would that help or serve anyone?

I don’t blame her publishers for declining to associate with someone like that. No one is obligated to publish her work. She should have just sat there and looked at her phone.

+1

What a loser. Doesn't this hen have anything better to do with her time than try to get people fired via social media. Ok fine, e-mail the employees supervisor if you want. But you have to be careful with posting things on-line because there is this mob justice mentality that is usually not good. Also, it's not exactly egregious behavior. Maybe she didn't get a break or was stuck in the car for 8 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I travel with my 3yo by metro every day and feel guilty about discreetly feeding him snacks, but now plan to just do it in the open. The rules are over.

Great example for your kid

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I travel with my 3yo by metro every day and feel guilty about discreetly feeding him snacks, but now plan to just do it in the open. The rules are over.

Total FREE PASS. Keeping little people fed needs no explanation..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I travel with my 3yo by metro every day and feel guilty about discreetly feeding him snacks, but now plan to just do it in the open. The rules are over.

Great example for your kid

If little kids are hungry, they’re hungry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was just telling my husband about this tonight. While I am a POC and consider myself to be incredibly liberal, I just can't with all this. The WMATA employee was clearly in the wrong.

Photography is not allowed on trains - so the author was also wrong.

[Anonymous]

I’m glad this happened. A snitch tried to get someone’s job because the woman told her to worry about herself, which she should. This author identifies as a POC when it benefits her but then attacks a black woman by dragging in her boss on Twitter. She got the smoke she wanted m!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just telling my husband about this tonight. While I am a POC and consider myself to be incredibly liberal, I just can't with all this. The WMATA employee was clearly in the wrong.

Photography is not allowed on trains - so the author was also wrong.

Who told you photography isn’t allowed on trains?????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I travel with my 3yo by metro every day and feel guilty about discreetly feeding him snacks, but now plan to just do it in the open. The rules are over.

Great example for your kid

You might say that about WMATA employees. A different rule for me and different rule for thee. However, I would not have bothered. It's just another example of Metro's professional behavior. Sleeping in the kiosks, texting while driving, is just SOP apparently. Pointing it out is racist or illegal by the rules apparently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No, I do not think anyone should eat on the underground public transport in a city full of rats.

This author was not in the wrong in calling an employee out.

I do not know the reason for the publication cancellation, but if the tweet is really the reason, then it's deplorable. And really weird.

The author is in the wrong because she was a COMMUNICATIONS PROFESSIONAL. How can that be your job and you don't know when to keep your mouth shut?

Just like Justine Sacco and her AIDs tweet.



https://www.vox.com/2018/1/19/16911074/justine-sacco-iac-match-group-return-tweet

Does a communications professional hamper you from calling out people who do wrong in their professional capacity? Metro employees should model good behavior on Metro. Seems like a no-brainer, and anyone who sees them do otherwise can absolutely call them out on social media.

I really don't understand why you don't get this.

Maybe that was the only break that woman got
Maybe she was rushed that day
Maybe she was tired from dealing with ignorant fools like you in the metro all day!!

[Anonymous]

Oh well
If a publishing company feels like someone they are paying to write a book has garnered so much negative publicity that the book will not sell, cause negative publicity for them and they will lose money, they have every right to cancel the publication.
their profit margin is being jeopardized and they have a right to make decisions in their own best interests.
she should’ve thought about that because she ran her mouth.

[Anonymous]

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.

Publishers are allowed to decide who they want to associate with. The author's actions highlighted a part of her personality that they weren't aware of and perhaps made them not interested in having to promote her. A private publisher has every right to decide who they want to go into business with. Having her novel published was not some inalienable right.