Woman with daughter kicked off Minneapolis bus blames racism

Categories: Transportation
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Last week when Michelle Jordan and her 3-year-old daughter boarded a Jefferson Lines bus in Minneapolis, the driver asked them to move to the back of the bus because he said Jordan's daughter was distracting him by singing to her doll. But Jordan says that as the only black person on a bus of six passengers, she felt singled out because of her race.

In response, Jordan refused to retreat to the back and instead sat in the sixth row of the bus. The driver responded by kicking the pair out of the bus outside a convenience store in Abbotsford, Wisconsin.

Jefferson Lines seems responsive to Jordan's accusations, emphasizing their no-discrimination policy and promising to check the 9 hours of in-bus videotapes of the trip to resolve the complaint.

Witnesses to the kerfuffle are mixed. Minneapolitan Boun Xiong told the Strib that Jordan's daughter wasn't that big of a distraction, while another passenger had a much different story:

...Rebecca Mink, a passenger who boarded in Eau Claire, Wis., said the girl ran in the aisle while her mother talked on a cell phone. "If you want my opinion, it was not a racist issue, it was a safety issue," she said.
However the situation resolves, one thing is for sure: it sucks to get stranded in smalltown Wisconsin.




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