Marissa Jenae Johnson is used to talking about race with white people. As two black women and the co-founders of Safety Pin Box, she and her business partner, Leslie Mac, make their living helping white people understand white supremacy and leverage their privilege to become better allies in the struggle for black liberation. Given this, it wasn’t unusual for her to enter into a conversation with an Uber driver on the way to the airport on Sunday in Orlando, Florida, about the kind of work she does. She was coming back from the annual BlogHer conference—where she and Mac were being honored with a 2017 Voice of the Year award for their work.
What was unusual and quite horrifying was that the driver used the ride as an opportunity to hold Johnson as a captive audience and tell her all about how compassionate his slave-owning relatives were.
"About halfway through the conversation he segued really hard into telling me about the fact that his great-grandparents owned slaves and owned a plantation," Johnson said. She sat there and listened as he told her his great-grandparents taught their slaves to read and write, emancipated them once they could prove their literacy and that his great-grandfather was "so kind" that he gave the slaves his last name. The driver boasted about "why so many black people" share his last name, Johnson said.
There are about a million things wrong with this. First, this is complete and total fiction. There were, in fact, no kind slave owners and anyone who tells themselves this is simply lying to make themselves feel better or justify the sheer hideousness of keeping human beings in bondage. So we can leave that particular narrative in the garbage where it belongs. But is this not only ahistorical, this driver’s behavior is also deeply abusive and dangerous. Johnson is a black woman, trapped alone in a car with him and only knew his name and information as shown on the Uber app. Though she was uncomfortable, she didn’t let his comments go without response.
Johnson told [James, the driver] that giving slaves their master's last name isn't an act of kindness. "You own those people. It's not a humanitarian thing that now they have to have their kidnapper's name," she said.
James argued that his family didn't "kidnap" their slaves — they "bought them fair and square in Charleston."
"That doesn't really matter," Johnson said.
Fearing for her safety, Johnson called her partner Leslie Mac to let her know what was happening. When she asked the driver if they were close to the airport so that she could exit the vehicle, it turns out that he had decided not to take her to the airport after all but instead was leaving her stranded at a Burger King—which was not only out of the way but according to the new black driver who picked her up, “this particular Burger King is a well-known crack spot in the most dangerous part of town.”
Johnson said the driver pulled up and parked at the Burger King, telling her, "Get the fuck out of my car and don't you ever get into my fucking car." When she told him that his behavior was completely inappropriate and unprofessional, he said, "It's dumb that I have to deal with you; you're a fat bitch anyway."
Uber’s response to this has been less than impressive. They took Johnson’s complaint and agreed not to pair her with the driver again. Seriously. That’s it. This is tantamount to kidnapping. And let’s imagine for one moment that a black driver had done this a white woman. What would be the response then? Why is there no accountability for the driver or for the company? Johnson has the right to know that this driver will not be out on the street again harassing unsuspecting black women and she should be compensated for the damage that this has caused her. As one can imagine, this has made her fearful of getting into another car with a white driver. And it begs the question if her work is safe to talk about publicly. The sad irony is that a product designed for white people puts them at risk of harm and violence from white people. But as her partner Leslie Mac tweeted out, “We are not even safe to tell white people what we do as a business apparently because they might threaten and racially attack us.”
When asked what white allies can do in this moment, Johnson talked about the importance of raising awareness of this issue and demanding accountability from Uber. She was clear that this is an opportunity to ensure that all women, people of color, and especially black women, are safe when they use ride-sharing companies. She also spoke about taking this back to her work with Safety Pin Box and giving white people tangible ways to demonstrate allyship. “On a local level, we can get white folks working with black organizers to give them rides to and from the airport so they don’t have to put themselves in danger like this.”
To read Leslie Mac’s Twitter feed detailing the incident, which includes information on the driver, click here.
And click here to contact Uber to demand accountability and let them know that racist drivers who kidnap passengers should be fired immediately.