Ten Black Women Kicked Off Train Due To Complaint That They Laughed Too Loudly

By R. Siva Kumar - 26 Aug '15 18:13PM

Ten black women who were on a wine tour were downloaded from a train, after one white woman filed a complaint that they were laughing too loudly.

When the women, who were all members of a book club, came out of the train, they were met by police officers, according to thinkprogress.

Lisa Renee Johnson, one of the women in the group, said on Facebook that the white woman came upto them and said that she was annoyed by their laughter.

Her charge, that this is "not a bar" was strange, as the train's primary purpose is to serve alcohol.

But another maître d' said that they were too loud. When he was asked who was filing a complaint, he said that "people's faces are uncomfortable."

Johnson added that the group of 10 black and one white woman were all forced to walk through the six cars and then off the train to be handed over to the police.

The Napa Valley Wine Train also put up a message on Facebook, charging the women of "verbal and physical abuse toward other guests and staff." Johnson captured a screenshot of the post, and later it was removed.

Although the group was given a refund, Johnson is demanding an apology. "It was humiliating. I'm really offended to be quite honest. I felt like it was a racist attack on us. I feel like we were being singled out," Johnson told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Napa Valley Wine Train defended that the women were kicked off after the company "received complaints from several parties" about the noise. The company is also "conducting an internal audit to make sure all of our policies were followed."

Later, the Napa Valley Wine Train issued an apology, but Johnson is not contented. "It's not going to make us feel less humiliated," she said, adding that the apology was probably due to the negative feedback from the public, according to latimes.

The officials also never admitted that treatment smacked of some racial messages. "It just had those really ugly racial undertones from the very beginning," Johnson said.