Posted on 08/25/2015 7:35:06 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
Getting wine-drunk on a train in Napa Valley sounds pretty good if you're the guys from Sideways or the parents in Bob's Burgers, but it's apparently a lot less fun if you're a black woman with a loud laugh.
A group of 11 women, members of the Sistahs on the Edge book club, were kicked off the Napa Valley Wine Train last Saturday for allegedly being too loud and disturbing other passengers—but the women say it was because of their race.
One of the book club's members, Lisa Johnson, chronicled the event on Facebook, igniting an outcry across social media and inspiring the hashtag #LaughingWhileBlack.
"I felt like it was a racist attack on us," Johnson later told the San Francisco Chronicle. "We were being singled out."
According to Johnson, the train's manager approached the group—which included an 83-year-old grandmother—and said that the ladies would have to leave if they "didn't tone it down."
"The train is set up to be with your friends, to drink wine, and to have a good time ... We were thinking, 'Who are we offending?'"
The real humiliation, said Johnson, came from being escorted on a "walk of shame" through the rest of the train cars before the women were asked to leave at the next train station stop.
The Napa Valley Wine Train gave each of the women a full refund after the fact, but Johnson is holding out for "a public apology for the humiliations they caused to us as professional women." They are considering taking legal action.
According to the Chronicle, Sam Singer—a spokesperson for the company—maintains that the incident "wasn't an issue of bias. It was an issue of noise."
The Napa Valley Wine Train did not immediately return VICE's request for comment.
excellent!
Always racism. Couldn’t possibly be because they are loud mouth drunken slobs.
I guess they’re looking for a big payday.
Eleven loud drunks were kicked off a train for annoying the other event attendees after defying the staff three times.
Doesn’t quite have the same victim ring to it when you tell more of the story.
Loud, professional women who can't tell when it is appropriate to blend in.
Gees. If you’re black and do something stupid, fall back on the race card. Hey, Sisters! There are other people in this world besides you and perhaps they’d just as soon not listen to your laugh. Learn some manners.
Professional women? Try acting like one, lady. And when you’re asked to quiet down by officials because you’re disturbing others, do it.
Observe them. Few have manners. Acting out to gain attention at any age is not acceptable behavior.
this gives a while new meaning to..LMFAO.....doesnt it
LMFAOTT??
Loud blacks? Who ever heard of that?
Taking the NJ Transit rail on occasion to my brother’s house in Upstate NY, there’s always a group of people, presumingly coming home from office jobs in Manhattan, who pass around a bottle of something, get sh*t-faced drunk, loud and stupid. Conductor does nothing.
A few years ago we rented a banquet room for an after play celebration. The kids were very excited after the performance. We weren’t drunk, we were diverse but mostly white. So we were very loud and asked to leave.
That's how their own react to them.
I hope they have video
There is nothing worse than a group a loudmouth drunks with no sense of dignity
Being a ‘book club’ does not mean you can turn uncouth when you have a few drinks and are out to ‘have a good time’
I am pretty certain they see people having a ‘good time’ on a daily basis, after the first few stops on a WINE TOUR,... they must have been rather obnoxiously loud and undignified to warrant removal.
They were LET ON THE TRAIN, how can they claim racism? It was their actions that led them to be removed, not their race.
Learn how to act in public and you wont get “humiliated” again
But, when you're trying to "act white," that is...going to Napa Valley and sipping the wine with the white folk...you have to behave like your civilized.
If they had done the same think on Martha's Vineyard (playground of the Nation's Negro elite), they would have gotten the same treatment.
They don't let white people into their book club!?
If it had been about their race alone, I don’t think they would’ve been allowed to board the train....
Most black people have decent manners. Some don’t just like some white people don’t.
The difference is that ill mannered white people don’t blame racism when someone calls them out on their inappropriate behavior.
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