Awesome - Man Uses Facebook Post to Call Out Woman Who Profiled Him at Airport, Then Apologizes the Next Day
When a music executive was standing in line waiting to at airport security, a woman behind him tried to cut him in line because she thought he was in the wrong place because of his skin color. After posting the encounter on Facebook, the music executive was blown away by the response, prompting him to offer her an apology.
The Set-Up
Emmit stood in line minding his own business as he waited to make his way through airport security. As he waited, he was suddenly interrupted by a rude stranger.
reddit.comEmmit realized she was treating him that way because he was African-American, so he quickly responded in a way that drew applause.
The Post
Emmit’s response was almost immediately greeted by cheers from the other people standing in line around him, a sure sign that they agreed with his comeback. That response inspired him to post about the incident and his response on his Facebook account.
picstoc.comHe could think of a few people he was friends with who would be entertained by his experience standing in line, but he could never have expected what happened next. By the time his plane landed, the post had gone viral.
An Unpleasant Experience
Airports are often not a very pleasant experience, and if you’ve ever flown, you probably know this. You can lose your luggage and you’re constantly being introduced to a new slew of security precautions that seem to get increasingly invasive.
metropoles.comAdd those discomforts to the reduced hospitality of flying, and you’ll see that spending time in an airplane is simply not very enjoyable. It’s an experience most flyers have to go through, unless, of course, you pay a little extra, which is what Emmit did.
The Benefits of First Class
It’s no secret that airline companies have been reducing the seat sizes in the economy class on airplanes, and the news has been reporting on it for years. But, with a little extra money, you can buy yourself the benefits of first-class. Not only do you get the extra space, but you also get priority seating, meaning you get seated first.
ettoday.netThis greatly reduces the amount of time you have to spend waiting in the security line and the line to board. That was a price that Emmit was willing to pay to be able to fly with less hassle.
Waiting in Line
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Emmit wasn’t bothering anyone as he stood in line waiting to pass through security to head to his airport gate, and that’s when the rude woman started trying to cut in front. Emmit knew he was in the right line; after all, he had paid extra for the priority seating, so he didn’t understand what this woman was doing.
reddit.comHe had a feeling, though, that her insistence that he was in the wrong line had to do with him being African-American.
A Successful Career
Emmit’s larger build made it more comfortable to sit in the first-class section with the larger seats. Luckily for him, he worked as a music executive and had been successful enough to make enough money to spend a little extra to make flying more comfortable.
reddit.comMaybe the woman had looked at his clothes and thought he didn’t look like he was dressed well enough to fly first class, but when he looked at her, he didn’t think she was dressed like she belonged in first class either.
A Welcome Vacation
Emmit was standing in the security line at the airport that day because he was headed down to the Dominican Republic to celebrate his birthday. He was flying out of Washington, D.C., from the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
reddit.comHis birthday was the next day, and he was glad that he was able to arrange everything to escape town for his birthday. He was so thrilled, that when the woman started questioning whether he belonged, he took a while to actually get mad.
The Wrong Line
According to Emmit’s post, the woman confronted him about his spot in line by telling him he might be in the wrong line.
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metropoles.com“Excuse me,” the woman allegedly told him, “I believe you may be in the wrong place, you need to let us through. This line is for priority booking.” But Emmit didn’t move. Instead, he said: “Priority meaning first-class, correct?” “Yes,” the woman responded, “now excuse me. They will call y’all after we board.” Emmit knew he was where he belonged though, so he pulled out his ticket to show her.
Proving He Belonged
Emmit knew he was right, and he wasn’t going to leave just because this woman thought she was right.
reddit.com“You can relax, ma’am,” Emmit said to the woman as he tried to make it clear that he belonged in that line. He told her that he was where he was supposed to be and had been there longer than her, so she needed to wait behind him. He even showed her his ticket, which he didn’t need to do, but he wanted to try to preserve the peace. He thought that would end the conversation, but it had just begun.
A Military Ticket
The woman wasn’t done with the situation, though. Instead, she turned to her friend and said, “He must be military or something, but we paid for our seats so he still should have to wait.”
dailymail.co.ukEmmit was shocked that rather than believe him, the woman was trying to come up with an explanation for how he had a first-class ticket. He was even more convinced that she couldn’t accept his presence because he was African-American.
A Military Response
Before we see Emmit’s response, it’s important to understand that being in the military doesn’t mean you get first-class tickets for free like this woman was implying. One of the hundreds of comments on Emmit’s Facebook post pointed this out. “I’m prior military and I’m offended,” the commenter wrote.
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militarytimes.com“Heck, they gave us economy seats,” the poster continued, making it clear that being in the military would not explain why Emmit was in that priority seating line. “These racists are bold!” the commenter finished.
A Commercial Flight
The woman wasn’t completely wrong in her belief that being in the military earned members free first-class tickets. People in the military and their family members can fly “Space Available” if they want. This means that they can fill in any seats on the plane that the military has chartered.
reddit.comHowever, this does not mean that they get priority seating since there are strict rules for who gets what seat based on how badly the military actually needs to get those people to their destination. What’s more, this was not a military flight; it was a standard commercial flight.
Emmit's Response
Emmit had to respond to the woman’s comment to her companion. “Nope,” he said, “too big to be in anybody’s military.” But he didn’t stop there. He went on to tell her that the truth was that he was a “black man with money,” although he replaced the word ‘black’ with a common racist epithet, instead.
reddit.comEmmit strongly believed that she only thought he didn’t belong because he was African-American, and her racist behavior had brought Emmit to the point where he felt like he needed to address her publicly. It’s not something he would normally do, but the response he got was great.
The Crowd Responds
At first, Emmit was happy that the people around him started clapping when he addressed the woman. They clearly loved the clever remark he had thrown at the woman who was harassing him.
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reddit.comAirports are a place where tolerance is extremely important, especially because you have contact with people from so many cultures. Emmit was put in a very difficult situation with a woman who was being extremely intolerant, and he wasn’t going to take it silently, which earned him praise from the people around him.
Turning to Facebook
Emmit didn’t think he’d get too much of a response when he posted the experience on Facebook. He figured just a few friends would read it. But in just two days, the post went viral and had been shared more than 250,000 times. Since then, the number of shares has grown to over 300,000, and there are also hundreds of comments and over 868,000 reactions to the post. Hundreds of people praised Emmit for his response to her racism.
metropoles.com“The power of an educated man with patience,” wrote one commenter.
Ignorance
Another commenter wrote to “Never judge a book by its cover,” in reference to Emmit, and they are correct. It’s clear from Emmit’s experience that you should never judge someone by what they look like.
metropoles.comThe commenter went on to describe the woman, saying “She is so ignorant it makes no sense that people like her still exist. Enjoy yourself, you handled it well.” Most of the other comments on the post supported Emmit as well, but when Emmit saw the viral response, he was not happy.
The Wrong Solution
When Emmit landed in the Dominican Republic, his Facebook post had gone viral. None of his other posts had ever done that, and while some people may have been thrilled to finally go viral, Emmit was not.
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He knew that the woman’s behavior had been wrong, but he didn’t like why the post was going viral. “This racist stuff is definitely a[n] issue but this is not the solution to that issue,” he wrote in a different post on social media.
Offering an Apology
Emmit decided to make a second post, and in this one, he apologized to the woman. “It brings me no joy waking up in paradise,” he said in the post, when he knew that he had caused another person to go through “hell.” It didn’t make for a great birthday.
reddit.comHe also addressed those who called the story fake. “The story was definitely real, just like this issue is definitely real, but I now know that I myself should of [sic] handled it another way, or left it how it was, and not shared it publicly.”
Some Negative Responses
Although most of the responses to Emmit’s post and experience had been positive and supported his response to the woman, there were some that weren’t as positive. Some people even went as far as to send threatening messages to him and his family.
reddit.com“If y’all want to be angry at someone be angry with me for posting it, and direct your hate to me, and not the ones defending my character to the ignorant ones,” he said in a post on Instagram. He later clarified in another post, “[As l]ong as the people that are close to me know the real me THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS…”
The Response Toward the Woman
Despite the threats Emmit received, it was clear that the woman who had harassed him received most of the hate. Looking at the comments, it’s clear to see why she never came out with an official statement or apology. One of the nicer comments called her an “ignoramus,” while others made fun of her “fried blonde hair” that could be seen in the picture Emmit posted of her with his first post.
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A lot of the comments, however, were flagged on Facebook for being racist since they attacked her Caucasian race. Emmit knew when he looked at the responses that things had gone too far.
Segregation at the Airport
As awful as it is, airport segregation used to be common, especially in the Southern states. The last airport had integrated by the middle of 1963, but it hadn’t happened without a fight.
history.comOne of the very last airports to become integrated actually had to be forced to remain open because the group controlling the airport wanted to close it instead of allowing it to be integrated. As an African-American, it was no doubt very difficult for Emmit to ignore this woman when she was clearly making judgments based on the color of his skin.
Rethinking the Situation
Emmit knew that just because he understood the racial implications of her comment, that didn’t mean that the woman understood them. Maybe she had been rushed and stressed and forgot her manners and wasn’t taking into consideration Emmit’s race. She also could have been a person who was rude regularly and needed someone to teach her a lesson so she could see how she was impacting other people.
reddit.comIf any of those were the case, did she really deserve all the hate she had received? Of course, she may have very well been a racist. But did Emmit’s post on social media help the situation at all?
Handling the Situation Wrong
Emmit’s original Facebook post sought to bring attention to the racist incident, but as it went viral, Emmit says that it was causing more harm. He knew that he had handled the situation well. He didn’t need strangers on the internet to validate his behavior.
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In addition to the hate he and the woman received, some of the people who commented on his post were also harassed by other racists who saw their comments. Those comments had been reported to Facebook, but that didn’t change the situation. Emmit had handled the situation in a way that he normally wouldn’t have wanted to.
An Explanation Post
Emmit wrote an Instagram post to address the post.
metropoles.com“When dealing with people,” he wrote, “I always try to stay on the side of Right, so to make sure I never do anybody wrong, I try to always put myself in that persons shoes, and ask how would I feel if that person did this to me, and if I was her this morning I would be a total wreak [sic] today, and that doesn’t help this situation, or her…it only makes them more angry, and bring more drama…”
An Apology
Emmit decided to write the next part in all capital letters so that people would get the full force of his message.
facebook.comHe wrote, “SO I WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGIZE AGAIN TO THE WOMAN I HAD THIS ENCOUNTER WITH YESTERDAY. NO MATTER HOW WRONG YOUR ACTIONS YOU DON’T DESERVE THIS.” He also tagged different people in the post so that the message would hopefully also go viral and reach the woman from his interaction. “I BELIEVE IF YOU CAN’T HELP NOBODY AT THE VERY LEAST YOU SHOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING TO HURT THEM,” he finished.
Going the Extra Mile
Emmit even went a step farther and recorded a video the day after the flight to make sure that the woman got his message. Normally, whenever he posted on Facebook, only about five or ten people saw the post. He said he never wanted all the attention that came with the viral post. He had even gone to the Dominican Republic to get away from attention, not to have it follow him.
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“I want to take the time to publicly apologize to the lady in the picture,” he posted on his Facebook account.
Being Positive
Most people didn’t think that Emmit needed to apologize because he had been in the right, but Emmit wanted to be a positive force, not a negative one. He had every right to shut down the racism that the woman displayed, but it didn’t help decrease the amount of racism in the world.
reddit.comIn all likelihood, the woman, who was completely humiliated most likely, would have just disliked him and held a grudge against him. And the comments of hate from the other side didn’t do anything to bring people together.
The Lesson
Sadly, it appears that what Emmit worried would happen to the woman who harassed him did happen. Emmit has yet to post anything indicating that the woman contacted him to apologize or accept his apology. In the end, the woman probably ended up humiliated and angry.
www.news.com.auBut we can learn something from this lesson. We can look at Emmit’s behavior and see that, even though he was right in how he handled her obviously racist behavior, if he could go back in time, he wouldn’t have embarrassed the woman on Facebook.
More Racism
Emmit’s experience wasn’t the only racist experience at an airport, and this next incident had a potentially dangerous response, although no one was severely injured, thankfully. A female flight attendant questioned two Asian men who she thought were acting “suspicious” because she believed they were collaborating together. The catch was they didn’t even know each other, and they both just happened to be of Asian ancestry.
buzzfeednews.comNeither of the men knew what to do when the flight attendant spoke to them, so they tried to join the rest of the passengers. In response, the flight attendant called the cops and warned the other employees. That’s when things got worse.
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A Stampede
The flight attendant told the passengers they needed to evacuate at once, and she hit an alarm that caused the passengers to begin stampeding. Thankfully, no one was injured in the stampede, and the two men who the flight attendant thought were suspicious were able to prove they weren’t when the police looked into the incident.
nymag.comPeople in the area thought there had been a shooter. This shows just how dangerous things can get when people racially profile. “It was the most insane scene I’ve ever been in or ever seen,” one of the men involved said later.
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