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Twitter Shaming Backfires

RPM

By RPM
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RPM

RPM 26,322

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An author reported a Metro worker for eating on a train. Now she might lose her book deal.

Author Natasha Tynes sparked outrage on social media after she tweeted a photo of a black Metro employee eating on the train and reported the woman to officials. Now, Tynes may lose her book deal.

Tynes, a writer and World Bank employee in Washington, tweeted a photo Friday morning of a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority employee in uniform eating on one of the service's trains.

"When you’re on your morning commute & see @wmata employee in UNIFORM eating on the train," Tynes wrote in the tweet, which she has since deleted. “I thought we were not allowed to eat on the train. This is unacceptable. Hope @wmata responds. When I asked the employee about this, her response was, ‘worry about yourself.'"

Transit officials responded to her tweet within an hour and thanked her for "catching" the employee eating and "helping" to "make sure all Metro employees are held accountable."

The response said: "Can you confirm the time you were on the train, the direction you were headed and what line you were on?”

Tynes provided those details and added: “Thank you for responding. Appreciate it.”

Eating, drinking, smoking and littering is banned on Metro buses or trains and in stations.

But the backlash began immediately. University of New Hampshire professor Chanda Prescod-Weinstein commented: "Eating while Black."

"That’s literally someone’s life. That’s their job you’re messing with," Prescod-Weinstein said in a tweet. "She was eating. Trying to live. She was commuting."

Writer Roxane Gay replied to Tynes’ tweet, “We all complain on social media but you... don’t identify the person you’re complaining about, in a photo no less, and try to get them fired. What on earth? For eating on the train?"

Tynes issued an apology amid the uproar.

“I apologize for a tweet I posted earlier today, which I have since deleted,” she wrote on Twitter. “I am truly sorry.”

By early Saturday morning, she had also set her Twitter account to private. As of Sunday, the account had been deactivated.

Journalist Yashar Ali called on Tynes to explain her actions.

“Natasha, what you did was so horrible you need to explain why you did it in paragraphs/pages,” he wrote. “Not bullet points and certainly not a tweet.”

The incident inspired the hashtag #EatingWhileBlack.

Many social media users accused Tynes of being among those to confront or call the police on a black person for doing every day things such as banking and gardening.

Tynes, who is Jordanian American and has described herself as a “minority writer,” did not immediately return NBC News' request for comment.

Rare Birds Books, a publishing house that was set to distribute Tynes’s upcoming novel, “They Called Me Wyatt,” said it has since decided not to do so.

The company said in a statement Friday that it had learned that the author “did something truly horrible today in tweeting a picture of a metro worker eating her breakfast on the train" and "drawing attention to her employer."

"Black women face a constant barrage of this kind of inappropriate behavior directed toward them and a constant policing of their bodies," it said. "We think this is unacceptable and have no desire to be involved with anyone who thinks it's acceptable to jeopardize a person's safety and employment in this way."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

California Coldblood said in a statement Friday it was aware of the incident.

“We do not condone her actions and hope Natasha learns from this experience that black women feel the effects of systemic racism the most and that we all have to be allies, not oppressors,” the company said. “As for the book’s publication, we are working with our distributor to take appropriate next steps.”

On Saturday afternoon, the publisher announced it will postpone the book’s publication date, “while we further discuss appropriate next steps to officially cancel" it.

Some have expressed support for Tynes’s actions. Unsuck DC Metro, a Metro watchdog Twitter account, reposted the photo of the Metro employee a number of times after Tynes deleted her tweet.

Barry Hobson, the chief of staff for the Metro workers union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, said in a statement Saturday the Metro employee was taking her meal break while headed to her next assignment.

The statement noted that 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.”

In the same statement, the union's president, Raymond Jackson, said, “Let’s redirect the energy thrown at this operator toward Metro for not providing more than 20 minutes to take a meal break and a clean eating area for every employee of Metro."

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Lhorn

Lhorn 4,915

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27 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

Busybodies everywhere busybodies.

 

There isn’t s single intelligent person in that article. Just a bunch of dumb shit busy lbodies.

 

For real. Probably the least hatable person on the story is the shitty employee. 

The busy body is terrible. 

The people trying to make this about body shaming black women are mega cunts. 

The publisher cowtowing to the blatently fake outrage is similarly terrible.  

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RPM

RPM 26,322

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1 minute ago, Lhorn said:

Probably the least hatable person on the story is the shitty employee. 

She wasn't even a shitty employee. She was on her lunch break (a whole 20 minutes) while going to her next assignment. Nosy busybody was a nosy busybody and it blew up in her face. Employee was just trying to do her shitty job.

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Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 52,524

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12 minutes ago, RPM said:

She wasn't even a shitty employee. She was on her lunch break (a whole 20 minutes) while going to her next assignment. Nosy busybody was a nosy busybody and it blew up in her face. Employee was just trying to do her shitty job.

No eating on the train means no eating on the train!!! Capital offense imo. 

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Sandman

Sandman 3,403

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2 hours ago, RPM said:

"Black women face a constant barrage of this kind of inappropriate behavior directed toward them and a constant policing of their bodies

Translation: Women (regardless of race) that break rules all the time are tired of getting called out. 

Now, I would never give 2 seconds of thought about what this person was doing. I am aware of my surroundings but I mind my own business. Her eating wouldn't affect me at all, but rules are rules. Twitter ho still should have kept quiet.

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High Plains Drifter

High Plains Drifter 11,050

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"When you’re on your morning commute & see @wmata employee in UNIFORM eating on the train," Tynes wrote in the tweet, which she has since deleted. “I thought we were not allowed to eat on the train. This is unacceptable. Hope @wmata responds. When I asked the employee about this, her response was, ‘worry about yourself.'"

 

The employee gave her some pretty good advice. She shoulda taken it.

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Mojo Hand

Mojo Hand 4,580

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To be fair, it's a pretty rigid rule on the DC metro that they enforce with citations from the transit police.   I'd be annoyed to see an employee breaking the rules that they enforce against everyone else.   But not enough to try to get the person in trouble, and putting her shit on blast publicly is crazy. 

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Pasken

Pasken 1,309

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9 hours ago, Mojo Hand said:

To be fair, it's a pretty rigid rule on the DC metro that they enforce with citations from the transit police.   I'd be annoyed to see an employee breaking the rules that they enforce against everyone else.   But not enough to try to get the person in trouble, and putting her shit on blast publicly is crazy. 

But they’re employees. Why should the same rules apply to them? I don’t complain that I’m not allowed in a cockpit but the pilots of the plane are. It’s ok to have different rules for different people.

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Mojo Hand

Mojo Hand 4,580

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10 minutes ago, Pasken said:

But they’re employees. Why should the same rules apply to them? I don’t complain that I’m not allowed in a cockpit but the pilots of the plane are. It’s ok to have different rules for different people.

They don't have different rules for them.  The DC law against eating on trains applies to "any person," with no exception for employees.   And the Metro employee rules also prohibits it:

"Employees shall not eat or drink in trains, train cabs, station kiosks, or in the paid areas of stations, as well as any other areas where these activities are prohibited."

And the reason for that is that there is nothing justifying an employee exception from a law that promotes cleanliness and prevention of rats.  Unlike the different cockpit rules, which have multiple, obvious justifications. 

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RPM

RPM 26,322

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I don't know the rules or the employee scheduling, but if Metro is forcing them to meal break in transit in order to make their next assignment on time they need to make an exemption or provide a better break system.

Edited by RPM
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Mojo Hand

Mojo Hand 4,580

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9 minutes ago, RPM said:

I don't know the rules or the employee scheduling, but if Metro forcing them to meal break in transit in order to make their next assignment they need to make an exemption or provide a better break system.

Agreed.  Which is one of the reasons why tattling on the employee is worse than the offense, and even moreso putting her shit on blast on Twitter.  One never knows the true situation someone is facing, so unless it directly harms you, mind your fucking busy lady. 

Edited by Mojo Hand
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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19,206

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16 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

Agreed.  Which is one of the reasons why tattling on the employee even worse than the offense, and even moreso putting her shit on blast on Twitter.  One never knows the true situation someone is facing, so unless it directly harms you, mind your fucking busy lady. 

It will be great if this outrage leads to the DC metro having to provide a one hour break for all employees.

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Pasken

Pasken 1,309

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48 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

They don't have different rules for them.  The DC law against eating on trains applies to "any person," with no exception for employees.   And the Metro employee rules also prohibits it:

"Employees shall not eat or drink in trains, train cabs, station kiosks, or in the paid areas of stations, as well as any other areas where these activities are prohibited."

And the reason for that is that there is nothing justifying an employee exception from a law that promotes cleanliness and prevention of rats.  Unlike the different cockpit rules, which have multiple, obvious justifications. 

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. 

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Pig Bellmont

Pig Bellmont 8,719

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1 hour ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

It will be great if this outrage leads to the DC metro having to provide a one hour break for all employees.

Good luck renegotiating the CBA. They get plenty of breaks and are paid more than average when compared to transit employees in other systems. All get at least a half hour for lunch and are allowed 20 min of travel time between assignments. 

The whole issue is dumb. Who really cares if someone eats on the train? Mind your business. 

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Rimbo

Rimbo 25,976

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21 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

Busybodies everywhere busybodies.

 

There isn’t s single intelligent person in that article. Just a bunch of dumb shit busy lbodies.

 

The metro employee said, "Worry about yourself." I can get behind this.

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GringoSalado

GringoSalado 1,651

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23 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

This falls under the category of mind your own business, 

22 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

There isn’t s single intelligent person in that article.

 

I see exactly one.

Quote

When I asked the employee about this, her response was, ‘worry about yourself.'"

edit: shit Rimbo beat me to it. Scroll down Gringo...

Edited by GringoSalado
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Nice Guy Eddie

Nice Guy Eddie 13,515

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Lesson. If you’re going to complain about people to their boss on social media, create an anonymous account for that. 

I question the whole “she was on a break” storyline.  If she’s traveling to another location for her next task, that isn’t a break. She’s on the clock working. 

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