I understand that her employer had a decision to make when this came to light and think they had the right to fire her. I said the same thing about the Alabama fan who got fired for a tweet after we beat them. That said, the two situations were very different:
1. Her tweet was as a child, and years ago. His was as an adult.
2. He was advocating to actually hurt someone specifically. She was using the mild form of the n-word in a way more akin to what is used in rap music than how it is used to disparage black people. Further she wasn’t actually directing it at a black person.
So yes, I do think that a employer has the right to terminate her, but I believe employers and employees should both be able to end their relationship in most situations for most reasons.
Now, was it fair? No. I said they had the right, but should they have done it? I don’t think so. At some point we need to have some guts at be willing to fight against a crowd that probably mostly didn’t even read what she said or know the context.
It was a dumb thing to ever post, and she should have thought to clean up her accounts before entering the public eye, but that’s an oversight that is easy to make. What matters a lot more than that tweet is if she is actually racist. I certainly don’t get that vibe.
Organizations are willing to cut people loose at the slightest chance that they will be villainized, because we as a society have been willing to jump on accusations and assume the worst without thinking about the circumstances involved.
I wish they didn’t fire her, but acknowledge their right. I don’t think it’s fair. I do hope she bounces back. More than all of that though, I hope people as a whole start looking at things individually to determine if wrongs were committed, and being willing to say what they actually believe instead of what they think they need to say to avoid getting attacked themselves.
