I’m probably one of the few people of color who doesn’t think Natasha Tynes’ decision to tweet out a picture of a Washington Metro worker eating on board was racist. However, even if it wasn’t racist, it was absolutely appalling. The more I think about it, it’s appalling enough that it should cost Tynes her job at the World Bank—which would be ironic given the talk that Tynes was trying to get the worker fired.
Let's review. On Friday morning, Tynes was on her way to work on Metro’s Red Line when she spotted a Metro worker eating her breakfast on board. When Tynes confronted the worker, the worker told her, “Worry about yourself.”
Let’s be clear. There’s a reason that you aren’t allowed to eat on board the subway. And even if the talk I’ve heard is true that Metro workers are informally allowed to grab a bite when they get a chance due to their limited breaks, the worker’s response to Tynes was incredibly rude and snitty.
But even allowing for that, Tynes’ response was out of line. There is no reason, based on what has been reported, that Tynes couldn’t have simply called Metro customer service. This wasn’t a case of a worker being caught picking a rider’s pocket, harassing a rider, or appearing drunk. The lack of proportion was disturbing.
More importantly, consider the undue danger in which it put that worker. According to some reports, racist sites got their hands on the pic and started doxing her. Even if that violation were still prosecuted, no self-respecting prosecutor would bring an indictment based on information gleaned primarily from trolling.
The more I thought about it last night, I found myself thinking back to when “Jackie,” the woman who claimed to have been gang-raped at a UVa frat party, was targeted by Chuck Johnson after significant holes appeared in Rolling Stone’s piece about sexual assault on the Grounds. It’s clear that some UVa students were so angry at “Jackie” that they wanted to see her punished. But rather than refer her to the student judicial system, they gave her info to a noxious troll, thus putting her at risk for harassment. Nothing “Jackie” did justifies that.
The more I thought about it, I wondered—how could Tynes not have known this could potentially happen? After all, per her now-deleted social media presence, she’s a social media lead at the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation. She had to have known the danger in which she put that woman. An ordinary person doing this would have been bad enough, but a social media expert doing this is beyond reckless.
I drew a parallel with a story I wrote when I was at Liberal America about Amber Cantorna, the daughter of a Focus on the Family executive who was effectively kicked out of her family after she came out as a lesbian. There was enough information in the public record that legally, I would have been in the clear if I publicized his name. After all, when you put out enough information to identify someone, it’s legally no different than posting his or her name or address. But it would have likely meant killing off Amber’s ties with her brother. Even if it had been legal to release her father’s name, it would have been incredibly wrong and unethical to do so knowing it could potentially destroy a family.
What Tynes did is no different. Even if her actions weren’t racially motivated, she had to have known that plastering that woman’s picture on social media was incredibly reckless. The only way Tynes can make this right is to apologize and resign her post at the World Bank. Failing that, she should be fired for an egregious lapse in judgment.