It used to be that being a racist nitwit in public meant being told off by the closest good Samaritan and slithering back to your freakish KKK lair.
Now being a racist nitwit in public means getting called out by Bruins president Cam Neely, being dubbed "a disgrace" by Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh and being hit by a tidal wave of backlash from 17,000 angry members of cyberspace who will make it their mission to forever haunt you.
That's the real story surrounding the racist tweets — including references to the N-word — directed at P.K. Subban after the Montreal defenseman scored the game-winning goal in double overtime Thursday night against the Bruins. It's a story of a few idiots sparking a tsunami of backlash that they richly deserved. But it's not a story of mass racism within Bruins nation leaking into public view. Despite what some media outlets have reported.
The misinformation appears to have originated with a Canadian news outlet that reported that racist comments from Bruins fans "proliferated through social media." That same outlet claimed 17,000 tweets referenced the N-word. This narrative was picked up by local outlets as well. Several media outlets reported — and later corrected — that the N-word was trending on Twitter.
Yet the original Canadian news article itself notes that "the majority" of the 17,000 N-word tweets were not negative — meaning they were actually condemning the racists, which last time I checked isn't racist. No number was given to quantify the truly racist tweets.
As of yesterday, I found seven documented cases of racist tweets using the N-word. I could find no evidence that there had been a proliferation of racist comments through the Twitterverse Thursday night. In fact, it seems that there was mass condemnation of a small number of racist fools.
Still, histrionics ensued. Some commentators called for Twitter to ban the N-word. They failed to note that nearly every racist tweet had been deleted through the system that allows users to flag comments as obscene or abusive. One local news outlet even seemed to dispense advice to the racists — urging people to think twice before they tweet. News you can use … for racists.
Looking for a sober perspective, I went to Rachel Poor, Boston-based social media consultant and president of Thread Communications. Her take: Don't censor the racists. Let them be racist. Let them feel the fallout. Or, ignore them as you would any child throwing a temper tantrum. "Social media is no longer new territory," Poor said. "It's another outlet for all people."
All people, including terrorists, porn stars and, in this case, the ignorant among us.
The lesson here isn't that there's a racist sleeper cell within the Bruins nation, but rather that a relatively small number of idiots can ignite an international "news" storm.
David Gerzof Richard, Digital Media and Marketing Professor at Emerson College, said that Twitter has a tendency to magnify the outrageous. And in this case, maybe that wasn't a bad thing.
"Now, it actually does get discussed," he said. "It forces us to deal with it."
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