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Prof of Africana Studies Claims Occupying Extra Subway Seat is “Battle Against Racism”
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On December 20, 2014 @ 11:38 am In The Point | 33 Comments
Racism. It really is everywhere.
You’re an organic public intellectual out to do a teach-in on Ferguson while taking up other people’s space on a crowded subway, after all what is an extra seat as reparations for slavery, and then suddenly some white guy just comes in and takes the seat.
Brittney Cooper teaches Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers writes,
On Friday, I was on the train to New York to do a teach-in on Ferguson at NYU. Beats headphones on, lost in thought, peering out the window, I suddenly saw a white hand shoving my work carry-on toward me. Startled, I looked up to see the hand belonged to a white guy, who was haphazardly handling my open bag, with my laptop perched just inside to make space for himself on the seat next to me.
That he wanted the seat on the now full train was not the problem. That he assumed the prerogative to place his hands on my bag, grab it, shove it at me, all while my computer was unsecured and peaking out, infuriated me. I said to him, “Never put your hands on my property.”
His reply: “Well, you should listen when I talk to you.” That line there, the command that when he, whoever he was, spoke, I should automatically listen encapsulates the breadth of the battle against racism we have to fight in this country.
Buoyed by his own entitlement, his own sense of white male somebodiness, this passenger never even considered that he might simply try harder to get my attention before putting his hands on my stuff. His own need to control space, his own sense of entitlement to move anything in his way even if it held something of value to another person, his belief that he had the right to do whatever he needed to do to make the environment conform to his will are all hallmarks of white privilege.
If you’re taking up an extra seat on a train because you think you’re that important, you’re the one with a sense of entitlement. End of story.
The breadth of the battle of racism is against the Brittney Coopers whose arrogance and boundless sense of entitlement has been nurtured to the point that they’re allowed to write about how racist it is to expect them not to take up an extra seat.
From the comments…
Hooray4This
And if the roles were reversed this essay would be about the white entitlement to take up two seats and how white people ignore black voices.
Exactly.
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