Southwesting...or...when white people's fear and hatred of blackness is too much to handle

I'm not really sure I know how to identify myself. Sometimes, I think I'm particularly weak, and am surprised that anyone would be willing to spend time with me. Sometimes I feel like I'm particularly ugly, and am surprised people don't just run down the street in black-induced terror. On the flip side, sometimes I feel like I'm King of the World: i have an amazing wife, a job that I not only like but also allows me to feel like I'm doing good work for a good cause. But honestly, most days, I'm literally just a dude, trying my best to get from one action to another to another to finally get to spend some time with Carol, who always seems to make everything way better than otherwise. It's why when she asked me if I wanted to go to the Giants Home Opener today, I didn't even think twice: a date day with my wife AND baseball? Sounds like a win-win.

We go to the City. I eat some pretty baller Chicken and Waffles at a place called Little Skillet, and then we head to the game. The Giants were taking a pretty solid beating, so we decided to beat the crowd and catch an earlier, and hopefully less crowded train. 

I can definitely say it was earlier. 

The train was at one point where there were people just jammed in the aisle- not exactly like sardines, but more so than really probably needed to be. There was, however, at least one seat available. I ended up cursing out a woman standing next to me for jumping in my business, but that's another story for another time, or maybe this story, further below. Nah, that's a different vibe, for a different time. 

Now I spent a lot of time in the air over the last decade, and usually, because I live in California and it's really easy and cheap, I usually fly Southwest Airlines. Southwest has a variety of features people enjoy: two free checked bags, the ability to change flights without a base change fee, their quite liberal Rapid Rewards program. But the one that seems to matter the most to me is the ability to choose your own seat, which those other airlines don't let you do. We all have *that* story- the one where we flew from SF to Boston or NYC to LA or some really long flight next to some asshat that didn't realize his feet smelled up that recirculated air tin can or the person who tells you about their *entire life* on the flight, the good, the bad and the ugly, or it's that person that snores and drools on you for 5.5 hours. The ability to choose to not sit next to any of the people above is critical, and the reason *some* people choose Southwest. 

But what it also allows you to do is to sit next to people you're comfortable sitting around. Having been on a plane that was actually completely full (I will post a bunch of pictures below, all on flights described as "completely full" by the crew and the pilot) and watching people walk past the empty seat next to me multiple times (as of now, the record is SIX times- a woman walked past my seat SIX TIMES before the flight attendant told her she *had* to sit next to me. I can tell you, from the way she gripped the her purse in one hand and her bag in the other, and the abject look of terror on her face, this was the closest she'd been to a black guy (except that one weekend in Jamaica where she let some Black dude run through her and only that dude, the woman, all of her friends and anyone on the rooms on either side of them know what really happened) and she was *not having it*. When the plane landed, she actually got up and pushed her way through 15 rows to get off the plane. That's rare, more likely, it's like this...

So you can imagine that I'm not necessarily unhappy when people choose to sit somewhere rather than next to me- I don't really like people, and for the most part, almost anyone that sits next to me will have me with a huge set of "please don't fucking talk to me" headphones. It's not *that* people don't sit next to me that is infuriating.

It's why. And it's what that means. 

In this instance, and I'm sure the people doing it aren't savvy enough to have done it for this reason, because it assumes more of a recognition of my humanity than these people were willing to do. The function was to make me feel hated, despised, diseased and treated like Blackness was actually Leprosy, like just being near it on the train will lower your property values or make your kids drop out of school listening to that hippity hop music while smoke rock cocaine. At each stop: at Belmont. At San Carlos. At Redwood City. At Menlo Park. At Palo Alto. At California St. At San Antonio. At Mountain View. At Sunnyvale. At Lawrence. At Santa Clara. At each of these stations, people got on the train and people got off the train. People standing uncomfortably.

And at each stop, it's a little reminder that people would literally rather stand around for an hour than to sit next to you. And it's not just one person, like that last unlucky asshole on Southwest that *has* to sit next to me because they literally won't let you stand the entire way on a flight. It's because about 100 people over about 75 minutes decided that standing for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe even an hour, was preferable to sitting next to the Black guy. 

Which, even if your self esteem is on 100, has to have some effect on me. Carol being with me today made it easier, because I didn't have to suffer alone and it was a reminder that even if society finds my Blackness to be the equivalent to social Leprosy, that's not what she thinks, and honestly, she matters way more to me than they do. 

But it's hard to be reminded that people, given the option, want nothing to do with you.