Emmitt Walker is a black music executive who recently purchased a first-class ticket to celebrate his 37th birthday in the Dominican Republic. As he was about to board his flight from the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in DC, he was approached by a white woman who tried to cut in front of him. She thought that he was in the ‘wrong line’ because of his skin colour.
When Emmitt posted a picture of him in line with her, his Facebook post quickly went viral.
But soon after landing in the D.R. and seeing that his post went viral, he promptly apologized to that woman.
Emmitt posted the conversation on his Facebook. ‘Her: excuse me I believe you may be in the wrong place you need to let us [through.] This line is for priority boarding.’
Facebook
‘Me: priority means first-class correct? Her: Yes…now excuse me they will call y’all after we board.’
FacebookEmmitt then goes to show her his first-class boarding pass to the racist woman and says ‘you can relax ma’am, I’m in the right spot, been here longer so you can board after me.’
Facebook
The woman then claims that Emmitt must have been in the ‘military or something’ but since she paid for her seats she should get to board first.
Facebook
‘Her: *still won’t let It go* he must be military or something, but we paid for our seats so he still should have to wait.’
Facebook
Then he utters the response that promptly goes viral and receives a round of applause from everybody else in line.
Facebook‘Me: nope [too] big to ever be in anybody’s military. I’m just a n**** with money.’
Facebook
But a day later after he landed in the Dominican Republic and realized that his Facebook post went viral, he posted a video on his social media to explain himself. In the video, Emmitt said: ‘when I posted that post on Facebook I didn’t expect all that to come from it.’
Facebook
He continued: ‘I can honestly name the four or five people I thought would comment with something funny, and that will be it.’
Instagram
He went on to say that racism is an ‘issue’ but publicly shaming someone is not the way to go about it.
InstagramEmmitt said ‘this racist stuff is definitely an issue but this is not the solution to that issue.’
Instagram
‘It brings me no joy waking up in paradise for my 37th bday and knowing that woman might be going [through] hell. The story was definitely real, just like this issue is definitely real, but I now know that I myself [should’ve] handled it another way, or left it how it was, and not shared it publicly.’
Instagram
