Amtrak pressed to explain why a conductor asked a Maryland lawyer to give up seat

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Psot

Amtrak pressed to explain why a conductor asked a Maryland lawyer to give up seat

The woman’s grievance struck Twitter users as particularly ironic, since she is a prominent civil rights attorney and person of color.

By Kim Bellware 3 hours ago
....





Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/01/18/amtrak-sherrilyn-ifill-seat/

---

Whoops. I've hit my limit. Try this:

Civil Rights Attorney Sherrilyn Ifill Live-Tweets Amtrak Conductor Trying to Make Her Move to the Back of the Train
https://www.mediaite.com/news/civil-rights-attorney-sherrilyn-ifill-live-tweets-amtrak-conductor-trying-to-make-her-move-to-the-back-of-the-train/

By Tommy Christopher Jan 18th, 2020, 11:32 am

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill live-tweeted an experience in which an Amtrak conductor tried to move her toward the back of a train that had no assigned seating, and gave a variety of reasons for doing so.

On Friday evening, the famed civil rights attorney addressed the first in a series of tweets to the Amtrak Twitter account, writing “I’m being asked to leave my seat on train 80 which I just boarded in D.C. There are no assigned seats on this train. The conductor has asked me to leave my seat because she has ‘other people coming who she wants to give this seat.’ Can you please explain?”

.@Amtrak I’m being asked to leave my seat on train 80 which I just boarded in D.C. There are no assigned seats on this train. The conductor has asked me to leave my seat because she has”other people coming who she wants to give this seat.” Can you please explain?

Link to tweet

[Iliyah]

1. 21st century and we are going through this again. . . .

[WhiteTara]

15. still. Going through this still.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Reading the article, there seems to be some confusion about the new policy of...

assigned seating.

If she was in "business class" and did not ask for an assigned seat when she bought her ticket, she would have to go to the unassigned seat section.

Much better to take to twitter, though.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Thanks. Without access to the WaPo, I'm in the dark.

Statement from @Amtrak:

Link to tweet

…

Link to tweet

[oldsoftie]

16. Yep, gotta get everyones blood boiling soon as possible.

Likely just a poor job of communication by whoever asked her to move. Giving NO real explanation is unacceptable.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. There should be a thread at Trainorders about this incident, but there's nothing yet.

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/list.php?4

[TexasBushwhacker]

5. The conductor screwed up

They should have said, "We just started offering assigned seating in our business class this week. The unassigned seating starts in Row 7 (or whatever).

[cstanleytech]

6. So is it a simple failure of communication by the conductor?

[TexasBushwhacker]

9. It could be

Or they could be a racist asshole. Either way, THE CONDUCTOR SCREWED UP.

[cstanleytech]

13. Either way though it needs to be fixed either with better training

if its a communication issue or firing if its a racism issue.

[TheRickles]

7. She's Gwen's cousin, FWIW. n/t

[LuvNewcastle]

11. I wondered about that. It's not a common name.

[IronLionZion]

8. I hope they find out what happened

whether it was their new assigned seat policy which started Jan 11 or if that one conductor was an asshole.

I've experienced "make Amtrak great again" where I got asked to show my ticket several times on a DC to NYC trip and the white woman next to me did not. We were around the same age and wealth so it was clearly because I'm a dark brown male.

People like me are used to this. It's happened to me at the Kennedy Center where I got an assigned seat ticket for Hamilton and got asked multiple times to show my ticket to stay in my seat. Each time, the employee looked visibly disappointed to see I had the right ticket.

[Delphinus]

14. I am sorry

you experience this - may we, at some point soon, wake up.

[demigoddess]

10. in 21st century United States this is unacceptable on so many levels.

[EarnestPutz]

12. Sherrilyn Ifill is, I believe Gwen Ifill's cousin. I miss Gwen's presence on public television's...

....News Hour. When she was off the air for a while and they explained her illness, I hoped that she might recover. When the News Hour began one evening with their usual theme music, but played slowly, an arrangement that sounded very sad, I guessed that she had died and it just broke my heart. I remember reading about her accomplished cousin Sherrilyn at that time, also out in the world doing good. As a quasi-governmental agency, Amtrak is pretty good. I think they will try to make this right.

[TheFourthMind]

17. I'll explain. Because Trump and his ilk have made it ok. n/t

[brooklynite]

19. You know that the Train Crew person was a Trump voter? How?

[brooklynite]

18. I'm not going to join the "we all know why" crowd...

I’ll agree that it was unnecessary, under the circumstances described, to move, but I see nothing that leads to a charge of “racism”. Based on my experience with Amtrak, there weee likely other African Americans in the same car that weren’t asked to move.

What I noticed was that she was asked to move from “the front” of the car. Seats in the front are regularly held open for groups and people accompanying disabled customers (there’s also space in this areas for wheelchairs).

[mahatmakanejeeves]

20. Thread at Trainorders about this:

Passenger Trains > Here We Go!
Date: 01/19/20 16:29
Here We Go!
Author: CA_Sou_MA_Agent

https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/01/18/amtrak-sherrilyn-ifill-seat/

The story says a female conductor made the request / demand. I guess that eliminates the "sexist" angle. Now, if the female conductor also happened to be African-American, then a lot of the wind will be removed from Ms. Ifill's sails.

With social media, and everyone having a smart phone equipped with a video camera, everything a train conductor does these days has the potential to immediately becomes a national, headline-generating story.

{reply}

Date: 01/19/20 16:51
Re: Here We Go!
Author: Lurch_in_ABQ

Jeff Bezos wanted a $1 to read his words but Doha Madani and NBC News aren't as greedy.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/naacp-official-alleges-amtrak-conductor-asked-her-give-her-seat-n1118556