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?"
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.
Yes there are:
https://www.mta.info/document/17001
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.
It’s probably applied whenever a conductor is told… And that is the conductor enforcing the rules.
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.