My intent was not to suggest escalation in this situation, but the reality is, which appears to have been completely ignored, is that 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 for well over 6 decades has left several deep emotional impressions, scars, about repetitive interactions with a few 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 change 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.) Exactly how the situation played out in the words of the author. Or, 2.) The author reacts and does what he has been taught to do his entire life - to say nothing, to internalize the rejection and go on with his day. I have not included the negative health effects that racism causes to people of color. And finally, 3.) The female - the woman in question, could acknowledge her short-sighted and anti-humane misgivings, apologizes to someone that she considers offensive just because of the color of his skin. These “dramas” play out everyday and unless people, who cannot, will not relate to this type of demeaning conduct begin to acknowledge that these behaviors do occur, without minimizing what was conveyed by saying “You weren’t there and neither was I” as a way to, sorry, whitewash, what the author recorded as his truth. Would your response have been the same if the write-up of the incident had been told through the eyes of say Rachel Maddow or any other person that is accepted as a media personality? Therein lies a whole other can of worms filled with misunderstanding between people of color and the people that dominate government, media and entertainment - they are mostly from the same genetic pool and what they say, even about an experience such as “stop and frisk” even words from a minority viewpoint, well, those words/experiences are largely unchallenged accepted and trusted by a large majority of viewers. Whereas, just as an example, if the exact same analysis of “stop and frisk” was delivered by Al Sharpton, many would consider his observation skewed, somehow less credible than if the same report was ‘read’ by a non-minority. My point is - as a minority, my experiences are questioned and set aside as relevant, therefore my nerve endings and my responses to being in certain situations are greatly influenced/informed by my life 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 experience. It also doesn’t take into account the woman’s direct experience with minorities or just how much she has been influenced by media, relatives, friends, ect. The bottom line is we must start “listening” to one another. We must begin to hear and understand that racism is very much like our society’s current obsession with school house bullies, a crippling emotional assault levied at someone that is considered unacceptable by the bully, at the very least. What we ‘feel’ as human beings is far more potent than what is often said or experienced through the infliction of pain, but what is felt, just that 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.
I hope, by my extremely lengthy response, that you can catch just a glimpse of the “why” of my response?
To the Moderator: Sincerely, I am not trying to be offensive or derogatory in any way. I am merely trying to define what it means to live in an envelop that is unacceptable to some. To many, I am not worth the dust on their shoes; I am less than invisible.
