I for one am shocked that a website predicated on mob justice, thinly-sourced evidence, easily manipulated images, and an intentional, existential lack of accountability and due process would have ugly unintended consequences. It’s great that the truth came out about poor Brianna Rivera but she’s gonna have racist images associated with her name online for the rest of her life.

As with carceral feminism, this kind of thing seems to stem from the presumption that good outcomes flow naturally from good intentions, which just isn’t how the world works. Honestly, it reminds me of nothing more than the whole Lena Dunham “sexual abuse” fiasco. It was mind-blowing to me to see someone like Kevin Williamson so easily able to whip up an old fashioned sex panic among leftists. But it’s an inevitable result of associating the work of progressive politics with having a hair trigger, with demonizing those who ask us to be careful and restrained, and of treating overwhelming digital character assassination as a useful political tool.

Beyond the obvious ugliness of situations like this, the problem with a site like Racists Getting Fired is that it reinforces the notion that fighting racism is easy and fun. Look, we’re fighting racism! All it takes is some screencaps and a Tumblr account! And I personally won’t weep many tears for the actual racists who said actual racist stuff on social media. But getting at the structures of racism that make the mass poverty and mass incarceration of people of color is far harder, and you can easily see how this sort of thing could lead to a backlash that makes it even more politically difficult– to say nothing of the collateral damage like for Brianna Rivera.