NYT Best Selling Author Speaks on Roland Martin & CNN

Zane Reflects on A Slip She Made on Facebook

Loop 21 reached out to a number of personalities who are active in social media to see what they thought about the comments made by Roland Martin, the reaction of the media and what this means for how public personalities will interact with social media as a result:

Zane: I just heard about it last night but I did go to Mr. Martin's Twitter page to read the initial comment. His reasoning that it involved soccer fans, instead of advocating violence against gays, holds some water based on the tweet immediately following the one in question to Piers Morgan, regarding being a soccer fan who would probably purchase the underwear.

Personally, I feel that policing social network pages is a bit much and this will deter celebrities from being as open and jovial as they have been in the past. Some women got heated on my Facebook page yesterday because a man said that women having a bunch of babies at a young age almost guarantees that they will be single. I defended him because he had a right to say what a lot of men feel. People with old-fashioned values should not be criticized because they prefer to marry someone who has no children so that they can build a nuclear family together. Now was I bashing single mothers? Absolutely not, being a single mother myself.

A few years ago, also on Facebook, I made the mistake of making a post about being sick of people inboxing me asking for me to say the color of my bra. I neglected to read the entire emails. All I knew was that my inbox was being bombarded by them. I had no idea that it had to do with spreading the word about breast cancer prevention. Immediately, I came under attack and found myself defending something totally innocent. I have been a huge advocate for women from day one and, ironically, had just given a speech at a breast cancer fundraiser a few months before.  People will take something and run with it, making a ton of assumptions, is basically my point.

At the end of the day, I hope that CNN will reinstate Mr. Martin, but only time will tell. He actually made a lot of comments during the Superbowl regarding commercials, musical performances, and the game itself, but clearly, I cannot read his mind and what he actually meant. I did not interpret it as a gay slur at all and unless he had been accused of it, the thought never would have crossed my mind. I do not understand why the group demanding that he be fired would want a meeting after they have already made that demand. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to sit down with him beforehand and then make an informed decision, instead of demanding that someone lose their livelihood over a "tweet?"

Again, I think that this is going to make a lot of people analyze every single word they post on a social site from now on, even when they are trying to relax and watch a sporting event at the same time, or stop posting altogether for fear of being placed under a microscope.