Letters - Why Is the Seat Next to Me Empty? - NYTimes.com

Why Is the Seat Next to Me Empty?

To the Editor:

John Edgar Wideman’s Oct. 7 Op-Ed essay, “The Seat Not Taken,” is for me a bittersweet reminder of the distance we have come and the long journey still ahead.

He could not have described more accurately my own experience riding the Acela and the regional Amtrak trains in the Northeast Corridor — the luxury of the double seat to myself and the clear realization that my skin color blocks entry to that empty seat.

Yet when I look back to a train trip from Washington, D.C., to Mississippi in the early 1940s, going home with my mother to visit the grandparents on their farm, I am reminded of my excitement falling when, after crossing the Potomac River, the train stopped so that we coloreds could be ushered together into a single, segregated car.

Decades later, I recrossed the Potomac from a Virginia hotel to attend the inauguration of Barack Obama. This trip was for me a powerful symbol of our national progress, just as the vacant seat is a powerful emblem, for those of us conscious of the meaning of its emptiness, of how far we have still to go.

Maurice G. Eldridge
Swarthmore, Pa., Oct. 8, 2010

The writer is vice president, college and community relations, for Swarthmore College.

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To the Editor:

It was with great interest that I read about John Edgar Wideman’s experiment in which he concludes that train passengers avoid sitting next to him because he is black.

I conducted a similar experiment on the Blue Line train in Los Angeles. The only difference is that I am white and the train passengers were largely black and Hispanic. For 12 years I took this train through North Long Beach and South Central Los Angeles, ending in downtown L.A., where I was a teacher.

Like the professor, I frequently had a free seat next to me. Not always, but often enough to be disquieting. On occasion I would ask my students, who were black, if they would sit by me if they met me on the train. Yes, they would sit by me, but perhaps not if it was a white person they didn’t know. They couldn’t explain why.

Neither can I, but it tells me we have work to do.

Tracey Young
Long Beach, Calif., Oct. 7, 2010

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To the Editor:

I chuckled as I read John Edgar Wideman’s essay.

Not because it’s funny; it is not. I laughed because of how I know it’s true. I travel on crowded Northeast corridor trains regularly, and long ago I found that the quickest way to find an empty seat is to scan the car I’ve entered for a person with dark skin.

I’ve long been a fan of Mr. Wideman’s memoirs, short stories and novels. From now on I’ll be looking for him on the train.

James Goodman
New York, Oct. 7, 2010

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To the Editor:

I was moved by “The Seat Not Taken,” but also bemused. I don’t deny John Edgar Wideman’s observations and in fact have also felt shunned on the commuter train — yet instead of being an African-American professor, I am a little old white lady from a nice Boston suburb.

Surely both of us look respectable, so what is the reason?

He believes that in his case it’s color, and perhaps in mine it’s “ageism” or the new crime of “obesity” (I’m a bit plump). Or maybe we both simply look as if we’d rather read in peace, without seatmates, who increasingly come with beeping and buzzing and flickering gadgets.

Whatever the reason, I mostly decide, like Professor Wideman, to enjoy my solitary splendor. Still, I wanted him to know he’s not alone in being left alone.

Lucy Phillips
Dover, Mass., Oct. 7, 2010

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To the Editor:

John Edgar Wideman attributes the often-empty train seat next to him to his race. But the answer may be more complex and perhaps less sinister.

I recall, several decades back, seeing a study of where people sit on public buses. My recollection is that people tend to sit next to those who most resemble themselves, by sex (most important), age and, lastly, demographics.

Race is a factor, but only one of many.

Richard Stern
Cincinnati, Oct. 7, 2010

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To the Editor:

I hope that John Edgar Wideman realizes that given The Times’s wide circulation among Acela riders to Boston, the dubious privilege of having two seats to himself on the train will come to an end with the publication of his essay.

I can just imagine the rush of “educated, affluent, sophisticated and enlightened citizens,” to use his phrase, to sit in the empty seat next to Professor Wideman the next time he rides the train.

This is especially true since most of the riders will be going to Boston, and they can now hope that the man sitting next to them will get off at Providence, leaving them two seats to themselves.

Win-win, as they say.

Eileen Pollock
New York, Oct. 7, 2010

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To the Editor:

John Edgar Wideman speaks the truth. It happens every morning on my commuter train. And almost every morning, seeing the African-American male sitting alone in the crowded car, I take the seat next to him.

In response to Mr. Wideman’s article, you must have received a lot of letters from people who say they do the same thing. What else is a decent person to do?

But if that is so, why do African-Americans continue to sit alone? Maybe we white Northeastern liberals talk a better game than we sit.

Todd Collins
Merion Station, Pa., Oct. 8, 2010

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