In the caption of the Instagram post, he wrote, “An old white woman got on the train and immediately pointed at me and told me to correct how I was sitting. I refused, so she went to the conductor and complained. The conductor called the police and stopped the train,” he said.

O’Keefe also says in the caption that the friend of the woman who called the police had said to him, “You’re not the minority anymore.”

A separate video about the incident has been uploaded by the user, Nalae, on TikTok, where it has quickly gone viral, having been viewed over 160,000 times as of reporting.

They said I was disturbing the peace by not leaving the train. They pulled me off the train and arrested me without even talking to the Karen who reported the one black person on the train. On the platform, the police detained me and interrogated me. Only black folks stayed nearby and recorded the arrest. When I demanded a lawyer and reminded them they didn’t even take a statement from the woman who complained they eventually released me. This country is growing more psycho by the day. What will you do about it?"

  • TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    45
    ·
    19 hours ago

    He literally says he refused to sit right on the MTAs seats.

    No he did not. This is what he said.

    this white woman said she didn’t like the way I was sitting on the train."

    • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      52
      ·
      18 hours ago

      Yes, trains have rules… Like elections…

      And if your sense of rules breaks down, your country might turn to shit.

      • MrLLM@ani.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        15 hours ago

        Yeah, we get that. The thing is, there’s no rule that says how you should sit on a train, that’d be ridiculous (ofc you shouldn’t invade other seats or put your feet on them).

        The article explains that an entitled white woman told a black man that she didn’t like the way he was sitting, and because the white is always right in America, that poor man got pulled out from the train and arrested: no questions asked whatsoever.

        Imagine that someone tells you “I don’t like the way you word your comments” and then you get reported and banned for that without way to defend yourself; it’s the same here except that this involves racism.

        • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          10
          ·
          edit-2
          14 hours ago

          “there’s no rule that says how you should sit on a train”

          Yes there are:

          Riders may not lie down or place feet on the seat of a train, bus or platform bench or occupy more than one seat. Riders may not place bags or personal items on seats.

          https://www.mta.info/document/17001

          • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            ·
            14 hours ago

            How often is that rule applied equally across all riders and by all conductors?

            Was the specific rider caught doing this singled out for a specific reason? Was it a random selection?

            Should riders enforce rules, or should that be left up to the conductors?

            A rule only exists if it is enforced.

            • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              10
              ·
              11 hours ago

              It’s probably applied whenever a conductor is told… And that is the conductor enforcing the rules.

              • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                edit-2
                6 hours ago

                I’m not asking when the rule is applied. Of course someone needs to make the call so the authority answers by enforcing.

                I’m asking if this rule applies to black people as much as white people, people of color, Asian people, other old people, other young people, men, women, LGBTQIA+ people, military veterans, people in authority like cops and fire fighters, etc. Is this rule applied equally?

                I’m also asking if this rule is applied by white people as much as black people, people of color, Asian people, other older people, other younger people, men, women, LGBTQIA+ people, military veterans who now work for the train district, etc. Is this rule applied equally

                Because if not, and for instance, if by chance white people are known to kick their feet up on this specific train line or this specific train district, then it seems like the person in question of this story was singled out. The same goes for the conductor. If the conductor is white and only tends to enforce the rules of the train on non-white people, then again it seems like the person of this story was singled out.

                How do you know you can make these calls one way or another without knowing the history of the train district, and the facts of this specific violation?

                It’s not as easy as saying this is a black and white situation.

                • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  3 hours ago

                  Police responded to a complaint of a 31-year-old “disorderly passenger” on a train at Fordham Metro-North station in the Bronx when “a conductor reported a passenger occupying two seats had refused to remove his feet from one of the seats,” according to authorities.

                  https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-bear-writer-handcuffed-train-after-allegedcomplaint-white/story?id=125829965

                  It’s not a racial thing he was refusing to obey the rules when the conductor asked him. The article is literally saying that.

                  Go try it, ANYONE would get kicked off when doing that.

                  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    4
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    3 hours ago

                    Go try it, ANYONE would get kicked off when doing that.

                    This is laughably false. People put their feet on the seats on MTA transit all the time. Do you even ride these trains?

                    (Personally, I have a very negative opinion of people who take up excessive space on the trains, but I would never call the police over it, nor rat them out to the authorities.)

                    It’s not a racial thing he was refusing to obey the rules when the conductor asked him.

                    You gotta zoom out a little to see the racism. The racism isn’t in the rules about sitting. The racism is in how the rules are unevenly applied.