It never turns out good.
In this case, it turns out that it’s because someone tweeted some racist shit and her boss fired her.
Boy do we love talking about how much we hate racism, sexism, and violence. And then immediately turn around and become the most racist, sexist, violent people we can be when someone cracks open that door, just a bit, and “deserves” it.
There’s a lot of ugliness in the original tweet, and the response seems to be “She hit first, so now everything is on the table.” Which is a philosophy I don’t agree with.
I’ve linked to this book several times, and I think reading Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed is very necessary. This book really made me feel that the way we’ve landed on regulating speech is the modern-day equivalent of hanging someone in the town square. Everyone comes out to watch, have a little party. It’s very gross. Yes, the offender may deserve punishment. But that doesn’t mean you, as a citizen, have to take part in that punishment.
I don’t know what to do other than to keep linking to this goddamn book until more people read it.