Open letter to the woman I rode a Lyft with:
I was running late. I opened up the Lyft app and decided between riding a “Line” (think shared ride with strangers but cheap) or a personal “Lyft,”where it’s just you and the driver in the car. I’m a college student on a budget, so without hesitation I chose the cheaper option. Getting cross-town is hard enough with traffic, but it’s even more horrible when your Lyft driver picks up a passenger pulsating with microaggressions.
Fellow Lyft ride passenger (presumably on a budget) when you got into the car your first sight was me: a petite afro-haired young lady, headphones in ears, book opened in lap, seated far left. Your second sight was the pastel-button-up-sweater-vest-wearing, and chestnut-crayon-complexioned driver. Your face, my fellow Lyft ride passenger, well it flushed over as you began to bark your orders towards our driver, overriding the GPS prompts that navigate the quickest route to our destinations. “Am I getting dropped off first,” your voice commanded instead of inquired. “Take 60th street cross-town.” The driver listened, trying to earn that four star rating, you rummaged through your bag until you pulled out your phone, and I fake read my book.
I’ve ridden the Line option plenty of times, with plenty of people, all around my age group, and you, my fellow Lyft ride passenger were the first to ever help me create a bond with the driver. For this, I thank you. As soon as you found your prized phone, you immediately called not one, but four people who sent you to voicemail. All received the same message: “This is Sue, I just finished my luncheon, please give me a call back as soon as possible.” I didn’t catch the hint of desperation in your voice until I notice you scroll through your phone book, call the fourth person, and leave that same message. I began to wonder what had I done to make you so uncomfortable? Was I too preoccupied with my book that you couldn’t tell me about your luncheon? Was the driver too preoccupied with driving down the heavy traffic route you suggested to tell about your marvelous luncheon story to?
Alas, that universal ringtone started chiming, unfortunately, as you quickly checked your phone to realize it wasn’t one of the four people you called, and I answered, in a soft, nasally whisper: “Hey, love.” My dear, dear fellow Lyft ride passenger, you sighed so audibly that my friend questioned why I breathed so hard and you shifted your body as so your back could face me and my conversation. Further into the ride you got a call, gasped in excitement, and began telling your caller about your luncheon, all the wonderful things happening in the world and how America contrasted this good by focusing on all the bad. That bad that you mentioned was the, as you said, “terrible riots in North Carolina.” No, not the protest, but the racially charged term, “riots,” that the media has been focusing on. Not the fact that another unarmed, complying citizen was killed by a cop, but I digress.
Sometimes it’s hard to explain to people what microaggressions are if that person hasn’t dealt with it. Which is why explaining why someone that gets into a shared car and surveys the brown faces and immediately throws orders instead of questions, calls everyone including the people there for her birth, and jumps out the car without so much as a thank you to the person that dropped her off is a microagression to people of color and not just rudeness. I’m not here to call people names, my fellow Lyft ride passenger, but I hope that you learn to check yourself, your actions, your words, and your entitlement.
