"Laughing While Black" has started to trend over social media after members of a mostly black California book club claim they were kicked off a train during an annual group outing over the weekend due to their race.
The 11 members of the Sisters on the Reading Edge book club say the Napa Wine Train ordered them off Saturday, embarrassing them in the process, and report they are considering taking legal action, according to Fox News.
Wine train spokesman Sam Singer revealed train employees had asked the women to either quiet down or get off the wine train and accept a free bus ride back to their starting point.
"The book club clearly was fun-loving, boisterous and loud enough that it affected the experience of some of the passengers who were in the same car, who complained to staff," he said.
One club member, Lisa Renee Johnson, admitted to Fox's California affiliate KTVU, that a manager on the train repeatedly told her group they were laughing and talking too loudly, but maintained that they "didn't do anything wrong."
Johnson noted some of the woman even quieted down after they were warned by the manager wondering what had happened.
However, according to Johnson, once the train pulled into the St. Helena station, the group had to do the "walk of shame" as they were escorted past passengers on the six other cards, reported San Francisco Chronicle. At the station, the group was met by officers from the Napa Valley Railroad and St. Helena police departments.
Accounts and pictures of the episode have been spreading across social media, spawning the hashtag #LaughingWhileBlack. Many have questioned whether they would have been treated differently if they were not black. While others say the women were simply being disruptive and deserved to be kicked off.
Jennifer B., a white passenger who boarded the train in 2005, like many Yelp reviewers commenting on the account believes that the ousting was likely racially motivated.
"I was on the dome car with my cousin" Jennifer explains on her Yelp review. "We drank. A lot. Laughed, stumbled down the stairs to use the bathroom and licked our plates. We were never even glanced at." She wonders if she "walked on that train with a group of my white friends and laughed and drank would I have been escorted off?"
