Read my latest story, "A Tale of Two Birthdays", at 52|250.

A woman was insulted, assaulted, and threatened after daring to tell the man next to her to give her a little space instead of sitting in the pose of entitlement (as I called it whenever I saw men on the New York subway sitting like they had basketballs instead of human male balls, especially when the train was crowded). When she reported this to the flight attendants, she was first laughed at and then lectured by the steward-supervisor for cussing in response to the insult. (Note that both Southwest employees were women and, like the assailant, white, while the woman attacked was Asian). Full details of the incident here, along with a smart analysis by the woman on whom this was perpetrated (found via Feministe).

It disgusts me when white women behave like this, though I suspect that a lot of the reason we do so comes from fear. The fear is that if you identify with and side with a woman of color, you will become identified with them– darkened– and thus subject to the same treatment; I know from working in customer service that being in that sort of a position heightens such fears to some degree, though given the power possessed by airline employees in a post-9/11 world (referenced in the supervisor’s requests for the woman’s ID) and the relative prestige of a flight attendant, this may not have been a fact. Regardless, fear is not an excuse.

You may have noticed that I referred to the reason we do so. That is because, by virtue of having grown up in the same racist, sexist world as everyone else, I am not immune, even though as a loud-mouth Aspie, I may not enjoy all the privileges available to neurotypical white women willing to side with white men against women of color anyway. I like to think that I wouldn’t behave in the way the stewards in question did. However, sometimes it’s not what you say or do: sometimes you take sides by keeping silent.

I wonder how many other passengers overheard what happened, knew it was wrong, and didn’t say a thing?

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