We all have those moments when we’re flying; we get into that mode.  This is an account of a day of travel.  First, my initial flight takes off late; I normally schedule a moderate layover, but this was going to cut it close.  Next, we land in Texas.  It was either Dallas or Houston; I don’t remember.  My second flight has yet to depart, which is in an entirely different concourse.  I barely have enough time to arrive at the next gate.  The moment the plane stops, I grab my bags and deplane as quickly as possible.  I stop only long enough to get my bearings in an unfamiliar airport.  Finally, I conclude that the quickest way to get to my next gate is the shuttle between concourses.  That’s precisely what I do.

I board that shuttle to my concourse and take a seat.  I feel anxious about the prospect of missing my flight but reason that there’s little I can do at the moment.  Meanwhile, I look around the shuttle at the others; some I recognize from my flight.  As the shuttle approaches, I grab my bags again; I have few precious minutes to get to my gate.  Finally, the instant the shuttle stops, I prepare to exit.

This is where it gets surreal

As I prepare to exit that shuttle and get on my feet, what seems like an invisible force pushes me down on my seat.  It’s not an invisible force of course.  I look up perplexed and see a Caucasian couple standing in front of me.  That force that pushed me down onto my seat was the man’s open hand upon my chest; he looks upon me with what I can only explain as a look of anger and disgust.  Next, as he returns my gaze, he utters, “Here in Texas, we let ladies go first.”  He then proceeds to motion, who I assume is, his wife off the shuttle as an act of pseudo-chivalry.

My mind shifts back to my immediate problem, which is to make my next flight.  To make a commotion here and now, will only serve to waste precious seconds which I can’t spare.  Though honestly, I’m too shocked to respond with anything but stunned silence.  The couple walks off the shuttle and I allow for some distance between us.  I make it to my gate and thankfully make my flight.  This was years ago; I had almost forgotten about this entire exchange.  Almost.

You may think that exchanges like this are exceedingly rare, that the people misbehaving are outliers.  This is where you are wrong.  The reason why you may come to that conclusion is that you are not the target of exchanges like this.

Pondering about what happened

Let’s mentally rewind those events; we can agree that he should not assault me for merely exiting the shuttle.  What are plausible explanations to his behavior?  Here are a few:

1. He is generically an ass:  This is possible.  It may simply be that he’s navigating through life pushing 50% of the population down on their seats for having the temerity to walk in front of his wife.  Though that would also mean that statistically, he would’ve had many conversations with police and lawyers for assault, so I think this is unlikely.
2. It was something I did:  This too is possible.  I can’t imagine what I may have done or whether it warrants our first interaction to be a physical assault.  Though again, this would also mean that statistically I would regularly elicit this kind of response from others; this simply hasn’t been the case.  Imagine that the person he pushed upon his seat was your grandfather or your teenage son and similarly contemplate that he used his fist instead of merely his hand.
3. He didn’t like who I was (nothing about what I did):  This too is possible.  He doesn’t object to men, in general, exiting before his wife.  It was my exiting before his wife to which he objected.  Naturally, the next question is, precisely what is it about me that was so objectionable?

I don’t know the identity of that couple; the likelihood of crossing paths again is basically zero.  I’ll never know for sure precisely the reason why that occurred, but among those three options, #3 is the one that makes the most sense.  In particular, was it that he didn’t like a Chinaman going before his wife?

“Whoa, you don’t know that’s the reason”

First, you’re absolutely right, though that’s precisely what I said two sentences ago.  Criminal behavior like this demands an explanation.  Second, wouldn’t you want to know if your 80-year-old grandfather may be the target of such an attack?

Though here is what I find interesting.  I’m illustrating how this one man exhibited criminally racist behavior; he happens to be Caucasian.  I am not saying anything about any other Caucasian people; I have no issues with them.  So why does this put so many on the defensive?

You’ll probably wonder what I mean by that.  When there are accounts like this there will always be two sides to the story.  Inevitably the side who can give the most consistent details should be the one that is the most credible, yet I’m often faced with people’s natural inclination to defend the Caucasian people.  I understand the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, but I’ve seen this occur whether the Caucasian person happens to be the presumed instigator or the victim.  Knowing little about the circumstances, the Caucasian person is magically more credible.  Why?

Is the idea that there are that many racists or that they’re that blatant really that difficult to believe?  I’ll let you in on a little secret, the more inclined we are to defend this behavior (or give them the benefit of the doubt), the longer behavior like this will persist.  There’s simply no reason for them to change their behavior if they won’t be held accountable.

How much do we all think about it?

To be completely fair, I don’t think he looked at me in that shuttle and thought to himself, “I can’t let a Chinaman exit the shuttle before my wife.”  I don’t believe those are the words that transpired in his head.  I also don’t think that he assaults every man that attempts to exit a shuttle before his wife.  I think what is closer to the truth is that he looked at me and concluded that there’s ‘something about this man‘ that he considered insulting to exit first.  In other words, I doubt that he spent too much time contemplating what was ‘something about this man’ that he found so objectionable.

Though what if that ‘something’ was race?  What if absolutely everything else about me was the same except that I was Caucasian, and he doesn’t feel slighted and thus doesn’t assault me?  Isn’t this the very definition of racism, to discriminate based on race?  Racism speaks to bias and prejudice; unconscious bias still qualifies.

I understand that the word racism is emotionally charged right now.  We have eliminated segregated schools, allow miscegenation, and abolished ‘intelligence tests’ and poll taxes for voting.  We’re making progress; we should absolutely celebrate that.

However, we still have a long way to go; we should absolutely weep about that.  Acknowledging that we all have unconscious bias is a start.  To continue to deny it hinders us as a society.