This is a comment by Thaddeus on the post “That Seat Is Not Taken: Why Black Men Love Southwest Airlines“.
Is this really news to anyone? Oh wait, it is if you are not a Black man. I have experienced this phenomenon my entire life. Whenever I ride any form of mass transit, the seat next to me will remain open unless the person is more infirm or potentially more threatening than I appear to be. On airplanes, unless seating is assigned, the seat next to me remains open. I have even tested the idea of walking down the street and not deviating from my flight plan. People walk around me and anyone I am walking with, even if I walk against the flow of traffic. This subtle act of fear, built around racism regarding Black Men, has turn me from being 5 feet 9 inches of a highly educated, well spoken, unassuming, non-threatening, well-dressed Black Man into the Most Dangerous Man Alive. It would amuse me if it wasn’t such a sad statement about our society. This trick works no matter where I lived in the country. This is such an isolating condition. Imagine what the workplace is like when this “untouchable” state is active. Corporate work is hell when you are an “untouchable.” (And before someone rants and tells me about the castes of untouchables in other cultures, I know they exist and that is why I mentioned it.)
Photo credit: Flickr / Robert S. Donovan
About the Editors
This makes me so sad. I look after children and teach them yoga. I live in one of the most culturally diverse cities in the UK, Leicester, yet still I see division by skin colour. Why is this so? People are people, they are good, bad and indifferent and colour has nothing to do with it. My clients are English, South African, Asian, Congolese and Ghanian, but they are all people, parents and beautiful human beings, I pray others see us all this way
This story was wrote by Editors, I don’t buy this just something you wrote to get a boo-hoo out of someone. You are the ones keeping racism alive by writing this kind of crap.
No, larry. “The Editors” is the byline given to comments that are posted separately as “Comments of the Day”. Perhaps one day you’ll write such a comment, and when it’s deemed worthy of being posted as a COTD, it will get “The Editors” as a byline, too.
Hmmm…
I must not live in that racist a town. They sure don’t get out of my way much here.
Ahhhh…. It’s good to be me, living in the land of the actually free and home of the actually brave, where people is people and where almost everyone is my neighbour.
That said, there is a white supremacist march planned in a couple of weeks. But, I know that the many who stand with me and who are my brothers and sisters will be there and will spit upon them. I feel it best not to attend lest I cannot resist the urge to make war upon my enemy and make true the motto of “DEATH TO THE ENEMY!!!” That just won’t end well, so I’ll be here, reading the GMP and knowing that my more rational, level headed brothers and sisters will be there standing for me.
Does that happen much in the southern U.S. (i.e. my brothers and sisters standing up against the Enemy)? I’m just curious…
“That said, there is a white supremacist march planned in a couple of weeks.”
This still happens? FFS. Theres racists in Ireland too but at least they have the decency not to take it out in public and wave it around. Happy trolling, if I was there I’d be with out.
*with you
I believe Orangs and Greens. I mean Oranges. Sometimes march in each others’ neighborhoods.
The issue I think you are referring to has nothing to do with race, Richard.
If you are referring to marches in Northern Ireland, bear in mind that the province is part of the UK, not Ireland, where Peter appears to reside.
The issue I think you are referring to has nothing to do with ‘race’, Richard.
If you are referring to marches in Northern Ireland, bear in mind that the province is part of the UK, not Ireland, where Peter appears to reside.
I had this same issue when I would come home from a deployment. I thought it was my hair cut, or maybe my silence that scared people. I found out it was my demeanor and my cold angry stare that scared them. It was the stigma that I was “crazy” because I just came home from a war zone. It started to bother me but my wife clued me in on something. If I focused on the good, had a positive attitude and stopped focusing on how I was being treated; my life would be better. She was 110% correct. You want to change racism? Seems silly but stop focusing on race on both sides. You get turned down for a job, cut off in traffic, or yelled at by a stranger stop looking at yourself as a victim and become an advocate. Weather race is why they did it or not. Be nice and nice things will happen and beside nothing pisses off a racist person than a nice person. Some one calls you a name or treats you different? Thank them and go on with your life. You will impact their life in a great way doing so and like I said really piss’em off.
I’ll be honest, my first thought was: are you a big, well built guy? I am and I get more or less the same stuff. Even if its only because anyone who sits next to me will have less seat and I look like I wouldn’t even be slowed down if someone bumped into me.
But no: “5 feet 9 inches of a highly educated, well spoken, unassuming, non-threatening, well-dressed Black Man” its just plain old racism.
Johnny you are so right, so I’ll carry doing what I’m doing, smiles, love and hugs
Peter. You’ll recall the “5’9″ issue was when the guy walked down the street, not yielding to anybody. I pointed out the alternative was to walk over him. But being polite enough not to walk over a small, skinny guy who’s emitting attitude in all directions is “racism”.
Pull the other one.
I am a 60 year old white man with a full beard. For 20 years, I’ve looked for a black man to sit with on an airplane, because the seat between us will be the last vacant seat on the plane. This is one of the few advantages to be culled from the biases of others, so let them fear.
It not just men honey, my mom is just under 6 feet tall and she gets this all the time. She doesn’t care but still. My son is a 15 baby faced 9th grader over 6 feet tall and he gets it all the time , then again we live in cincinnati.
Not sure why people are convinced this is any evidence of racism. And by the way, I’d love to have this problem of having a clear walking path wherever I go. Awesome!
Anyway, a black man in the office is reduced to the same threat level as other the office co-workers (one presumes he was hired thru the same processes). However, a black man on the street is an unknown whose relative risk must be weighed based on what we know or can observe about black males collectively…hence the wariness. This isn’t racism, but in fact is a good example of a useful stereotypes. We can thus apply information that we may not have acquired through direct experience (the theoretical) to a real world situation (the practical).
Of course taking into account various other factors like location, time of day, appearance of dress (ghetto thug attire vs well dressed business/suit), etc.
Anyway, this is just one of a constellation of factors used to assess stranger danger.
Now in light of our recent tragedy of Trayvon Martin, anyone willing to look at me, yes, I am the guy that wrote the selected comment and tell me that “Being or Walking While Black” is not an obstacle in our current supposedly “post-racial” society is simply not paying attention.
If you were not aware, Trayvon Martin was a young Black man in Florida who was shot because “he looked suspicious.” If you were a White person who told me that I should yield to people coming down the street, or a Black person who told me I should work to be happier so that I mind the racism less, neither of those answers will address the reality that as I move down any street in at least fifteen states in the US who have similar “Stand Your Ground” laws, I could be accused of being aggressive, belligerent, or hell just being there is all it takes for me to find myself shot and my shooter walking away, as long as he said, he was “engaged in an act of self defense.”
Let’s add to that, the tendency of law enforcement to grab young Black men off the street, crime or not and harass them at will. I have dealt with that all of my life. “Driving while Black, walking while Black” now I can add to it “Being while Black” as a reason to deprive me of my social rights, respect, or even my life without any consequences to any White person who can mouth the right legal words to escape. Does this make me angry? Hell, yes. And if it were happening to you or your sons, you would be livid. But it’s not so for most of you, you don’t give a damn.
Now all of you who would put words in my mouth about how I should do things in this society remember this: NONE of you have to walk in my shoes. You do not have to fear every time you walk out your door, it may be the last time, through no fault of your own but through the racial stigma associated with being a Black Man. I do not have to do anything. I simply have to exist for someone to decide that I might be a threat and that threat needs to be neutralized. Know that when the system has gathered the last Black Man from the streets, and put them in the prisons or the morgue, they will come for you next. This is not just about my Blackness. This is about power and control. This society needs a demon, a boogeyman for people to fear while they are being manipulated, led about and exploited as the natural resource they are. The next time you consider the phrase “human resources” it should give you a chill.
Turn your back on me and my travails, it is after all the American way. Black men are the most unemployed members of our society, even when their skills and training are comparable or superior, most imprisoned, no matter the type of crime, we are over-represented within the penal system, most under-educated, we are plucked out of the school system, called unteachable by the fourth grade and fast-tracked into the penal system. I challenge all of you snarky folk with something to say about “perceived racism” or my reaction to it, to work on the “actual racism” visibly inherent in society.
Otherwise when you see me coming down the street, get the hell out of my way. I am fighting the system because I have no choice. It is trying to kill me and everyone like me. I don’t have time for you and your petty fears, my life is on the line.
Good post. But there’s clearly more to the situation (the inequities you mention) than just racism.