My intent was not to suggest escalation, but the reality is, which appears
to have been completely ignored, is many situations involving people of
color escalate simply because simple common sense and expected respectful
discourse does not occur. You are right, I do not know what happened
because I was not there, but I can assure you that walking around in this
black skin of mine for well over 6 decades has left several deep emotional
impressions about repetitive interactions with pigment challenged females
and males.
The pilot “choose” to only deal with one party in the incident. My
question, and I am wholly aware that you will not be able to answer this
question is, why didn’t the ‘lady’ move if she was so offended? Why didn’t
her husband offer to exchange seats? People of color must deal with these
types of incidents more than you can imagine, some incidents occur with
lightening quickness, unverbalized but still emotionally potent rejection
that almost always causes some type of response. 1.) response one- exactly
how the situation played out in the words of the author. 2.) The author
decides to do like he has been taught to do his entire life - to say
nothing to internalize the rejection and go on with his life. Needless to
say I have not included the health after effects of racism on people of
color but it happens. 3.) The female - the woman, could acknowledge her
short-sighted and anti-humane response and apologize to someone that was
only offensive because of his color. These “dramas” play out everyday and
unless people who cannot relate to this type of demeaning conduct begins
to accept the idea that such behaviors occur, without trying to minimize
the situation by saying “You weren’t there and neither was I” as a way to,
sorry, whitewash what the author recorded. Would your response to me have
been the same if the write-up of the incident had been through the eyes of
Rachel Maddow or any other person that is accepted as a media personality
or expert and are not pigment challenged? Therein lies a whole other
misunderstandings between people of color and the people that populate and
effect our society and media - they are all, mostly, of the same genetic
ancestry and what they say, even if its about an experience like “stop and
frisk” their words are trusted. Whereas, just as an example, if the exact
same analysis of “stop and frisk” was delivered by Al Sharpton would in
fact be considered less credible by a whole swath of people. My point is -
as a minority, my nerve endings and my responses to being in certain
situations and my responses to those situation are greatly influenced by my
experience. What you may consider a poor response from the young man of
color, in my opinion, does not take into account his lifetime of
experiences. It also doesn’t take into account the woman’s direct
experience with minorities or just how much she has been influenced by our
media. We must start “listening” to one another. We must begin to hear and
understand that racism is very much like the bully syndrome we have begun
to acknowledge exists in our schools and our children. What we feel towards
others is far more potent than what is said and often results in actions,
but what is felt by people, just the whiff of “I don’t need to consider
your feelings because I don’t consider you to be human” is far more
damaging to the soul of an individual.
I hope, by my extremely lengthy response, that you can catch just a glimpse
of my response?
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