They weren’t angry black women when they boarded the train, but they sure were when they were ejected from it. I’m talking about the 11 book-club members—all but one black—who were recently booted from a wine tour for laughing while black. Here’s what went down:
Women on a wine-train excursion were laughing. That allegedly made some people uncomfortable. The women were kicked off. It really is that simple. And that stupid.
Napa Valley Wine Train spokesperson Sam Singer put it this way: “The book club clearly was fun-loving, boisterous and loud enough that it affected the experience of some of the passengers who were in the same car, who complained to staff.” As a result, train employees told the women to quiet down or step off the train for a bus ride back to the starting point. (The bus would be free. Ain’t that some customer service?)
One “Sistahs on the Reading Edge” book-club member, author Lisa Renee Johnson, told TV station KTVU that, although her group was told they were talking too loudly, “we didn’t do anything wrong.” Members of the group also claimed that some train employees had told them that past groups had been noisier without being thrown off the train. (Indeed, after this story became public, social media lit up with videos of previous groups of boisterous partiers on the train.)
As Johnson wrote on social media at the time, “We sipped wine, enjoyed each others’ company but our trip is being cut short. This woman said our laughter annoyed her because this is ‘not a bar’…if we all laugh at the same time it’s loud! When we get to St. Helena they are putting us off the train.”
Johnson, who insisted that the train should’ve honored the group’s request to sit together rather than ultimately scattering members throughout the car, said that once they were forced to leave, “we were treated like we didn’t belong there, and we paid our money just like everyone else. If they cannot accommodate groups, they should not take our money as a group.” (The company refunded the group’s tickets. Ain’t that some customer service?)
As if being marched through multiple train cars before being kicked off were not enough, police were waiting for these women as they stepped off. “When we get off the train, the police are just standing there,” said member Katherine Neal, “and they’re looking at us like, ‘These are the unruly people?’”
Police spokesperson Maria Gonzalez said that train employees had called to report “11 disruptive females.” However, upon arriving at the scene, officers found that “there was no crime being committed … nobody was intoxicated, there were no issues.” So the police left, and the women waited 20 min for the bus to pick them up.
Got that? No one was even drunk yet! (Isn’t that what a wine train is for?)
After the incident gained traction in the press, the CEO of the train company issued an apology. “The Napa Valley Wine Train was 100% wrong in its handling of this issue,” CEO Anthony Giaccio stated. “We accept full responsibility for our failures and for the chain of events that led to this regrettable treatment of our guests.” (Ain’t that some customer service?)
“They’re not apologizing for parading us down those five train cars and giving us to the police; they’re not apologizing for making us stand in the dirt for 20 minutes in the hot sun with an 85-year-old senior and somebody else who is just recovering from surgery,” Johnson told CNN affiliate KRON. “They’re not apologizing to how we felt we were treated on their train,” she said. “We feel like we were never their customers, and they never ever made accommodations for us. It was about us having to make accommodations for other people.”
In the end, I’d like to think that train workers would’ve acted just as idiotically had the women been white, but I doubt it. Such a shame that a laughing black women seems to conjure the stereotype of the angry black woman. In this case, there’s nothing to laugh about and plenty to be angry about.
