Olympian Louis Smith alleges discriminatory VTEC ticket check

[najaB]

That being the case, I wonder if it might in his case have just been a judgement that he looked a bit "rough" to be in 1st?

Is that really any better?

 

[Rail Blues]

Give me strength.... the conductor might ha e thought he was a bit tanned or swarthy??????

He's clearly of mixed heritage. Do you have any idea what he was wearing or conducting himself? Plus the presence of another black person in first class who was subject to the same treatment, or do all black black people look rough and like they don't belong in first class?

Why on earth do some people (who presumably have never experienced systematic or institutionalised racism) when confronted by racism have a knee jerk reaction to deny it and give convoluted explanations for any interpretation other than the obvious.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why on earth do some people (who presumably have never experienced systematic or institutionalised racism) when confronted by racism have a knee jerk reaction to deny it and give convoluted explanations for any interpretation other than the obvious.

He is not obviously black - as I said his skin tone is not dissimilar to mine (and rather lighter than, say, a tanned Italian) and I am not black and nor is said Italian. I actually wrote out my most recent post once, then deleted it because I thought he was talking about someone else rather than himself!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is that really any better?

One of them is a criminal matter and one of them is not, of course. Morally, no, you shouldn't read a book by its cover, of course.

 

[Sleepy]

Just travel with GWR and no one checks your ticket in 1st class !!! (Except on entry to lounge at Paddington )

 

[robbeech]

Is that really any better?

No, of course not, but it opens up the question of which sort of unacceptable discrimination the member of staff was using I suppose.
I regularly look scruffy when I’m on a train if i have been working on a festival site. It doesn’t make my London to Edinburgh FOR any less valid but it absolutely makes a difference to the service you receive quite a lot of the time.

 

[Rail Blues]

He is not obviously black - as I said his skin tone is not dissimilar to mine (and rather lighter than, say, a tanned Italian) and I am not black and nor is said Italian. I actually wrote out my most recent post once, then deleted it because I thought he was talking about someone else rather than himself!

I still cannot see how Louis Smith can be seen as anything other than what he is, a person of mixed white and black heritage, but we'll have to disagree on that.

Even aside from that, the server clearly did see him as black. He picked out two first class passengers not travelling together who shared one characteristic - ethnicity - for a ticket check. He clearly saw them as black and discriminated against them on this basis.

The intellectual contortions you need to make to see this for something other than an incident motivated consciously or subconsciously by a set of ideas around race and ethnicity are really quite considerable.

 

[AlterEgo]

Is that really any better?

I think making a snap judgment on someone based on their dress is much less nefarious than doing so on the grounds of race.

 

[AlterEgo]

I still cannot see how Louis Smith can be seen as anything other than what he is, a person of mixed white and black heritage, but we'll have to disagree on that.

Even aside from that, the server clearly did see him as black. He picked out two first class passengers not travelling together who shared one characteristic - ethnicity - for a ticket check. He clearly saw them as black and discriminated against them on this basis.

The intellectual contortions you need to make to see this for something other than an incident motivated consciously or subconsciously by a set of ideas around race and ethnicity are really quite considerable.

We don’t know if that’s what caused the server to ask. It could be that they were dressed casually or scruffily.

I have been asked if I belong in the business class line before at airports by staff. I’m white and in my 30s. However I usually dress for comfort and I have a scruffy and cheap bag.

 

[najaB]

I think making a snap judgment on someone based on their dress is much less nefarious than doing so on the grounds of race.

Making a judgement, okay. There's nothing you can do about first impressions. The problem is then deciding to check their tickets and nobody else's.

 

[AlterEgo]

Making a judgement, okay. There's nothing you can do about first impressions. The problem is then deciding to check their tickets and nobody else's.

Both aren’t good but it’s far worse to do so based on a protected characteristic the subject can’t control, like their race or sex, than how they’ve chosen to dress (unless the way they dress is a signpost to their protected characteristic - eg: wearing a turban).

Someone asking to see my boarding pass because I’ve not shaved in three days and have a scruffy bag isn’t as bad as someone asking to do so if I was black or gay.

 

[Rail Blues]

We don’t know if that’s what caused the server to ask. It could be that they were dressed casually or scruffily.

I have been asked if I belong in the business class line before at airports by staff. I’m white and in my 30s. However I usually dress for comfort and I have a scruffy and cheap bag.

The principle of Occam's razor is useful here.

Either A)

The server identified Lewis Smith and another passenger as being black and this either consciously or subconsciously asked for their tickets

Or

B) The server didn't realise the both Lewis Smith and the other passenger travelling separately from Lewis Smith and previously unknown to him) were black and they and they only were both scruffily dressed (when we have no idea how either were dressed) and all the other white passengers were suited and booted.