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

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[quote=Anonymous]All the people who say MYOB and black people would never police the behavior of others or film them, the fact that they do (also) is why we know about BBQ Becky, etc.  The overreaction of calling the police is certainly a white person thing, but the public shaming of others as being racist can also be driven by people of color and their allies (such as this woman's publisher - such overreaction; as if the author were routinely "policing" black women).  I suspect what happened is that this author was miffed about the Metro employee telling her to MYOB, and took revenge for that - totally stupid and immature, but could certainly be about something other than race.

The issue of public shaming is from white people, black people, Asian people.  It's a problem all around, and the response is disproportionate to the "crime".  Is eating on the Metro wrong?  Yes.  Is it proportionate to publicly shame her? No.  Is it wrong to post a derogatory tweet publicly for a minor infraction?  Yes.  Is it proportional to have this woman's career ended? No.  The Metro employee will not be fired, and would never be fired for this, but the author does potentially lose her livelihood.  It certainly backfired.

Years ago, there was a Nobel laureate chemist who was speaking at a women in science conference, and made a comment about not having women in the lab because they'd be distracting.  It was a clumsy attempt at a joke from someone who had mentored and supported women in science. The woman who misrepresented the comment and destroyed his career had also lied about her credentials in order to get into her position.  But she was able to ruin a man's career, because the mob mentality of social media that judged without knowing or caring about fact/nuance/intent/proportionality.

We all need to be careful about trial by twitter and letting our indignation (whether right or wrong) lead to these ridiculous outcomes from minor infractions. [/quote]

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