A video showing a fleet of Santas jumping turnstiles at a New York subway station is raising questions.
Twitter user @solublefischel shared a video showing at least a dozen SantaCon pub crawl participants, who mostly appear to be white, jumping turnstiles at an Astor Place subway station in Manhattan on Saturday.
“Damn… SantaCon is lit y’all,” she wrote.
Damn… SantaCon is lit y'all pic.twitter.com/73xNzLJs7m
— stone elizabeth other-mountain (@solublefischel) December 14, 2019
A follow-up tweet shows some of the Santas holding doors open for other passengers to enter freely.
— stone elizabeth other-mountain (@solublefischel) December 14, 2019
A Saturday evening report on CBS New York said police believed “most of the people were on their best behavior” at SantaCon, but two people had been arrested and charged with assault. There was no mention of the turnstile jumping.
The video is touching a nerve for New York residents who have been protesting crackdowns by the New York Police Department on subway fare evaders, which disproportionately affects people of color and poor people. Protests started with the documented attack on Black teenager Adrian Napier, who was hunted down by more than a dozen cops pointing arms at him for jumping the turnstile at a Brooklyn subway station in October. Activists organized protests last month amid other reports, including the arrest of a woman selling churros on a subway platform.
In response to the video of white Santas giddily jumping turnstiles, many who questioned if Black people would be able to do the same with such merriment.
https://twitter.com/champagne_sage/status/1206069136813690880?s=20
Oh would you look at at…not one police officer in sight maybe due to the event and the demographic of people that always participate meanwhile I see a minimum of 4 officers at my stop daily itching to arrest or ticket someone 🙃🙃🙃 Its only "lit" when another group does it
— Mz Muffinz (@Cavi712) December 15, 2019
And not one cop to be seen issuing tickets for fare evasion. Meanwhile, a cop tried to break my arm as I walked away after exercising my right to remain silent. White privilege is a hell of a drug. pic.twitter.com/mJVkneANBA
— Karim #FreePalestine 🍉 (@shift_in2_turbo) December 16, 2019
In all Honesty all I see in this video is white people jumping the turnstyle without anybody bothering them and knowing the @NYGovCuomo has Undercover cops on busses in poor black & brown communities giving $100 tickets if people are short .25 cent or selling churros so 👎🏾
— 4RaNsoM (@theworld4ransom) December 15, 2019
https://twitter.com/chesterapricot/status/1206239130302201858?s=20
Bc it was never about not paying the fare. It’s racism
— valerie complex (@ValerieComplex) December 15, 2019
@MTA where are all the cops to stop this or do you and @NYCMayor only care about the poor people who can’t afford to pay and have to do this?? 🤔 and i’m not going to even start about if this was black people. They would have been shot 🤬
— Jamila (@Jamila_Pope) December 15, 2019
@MTA where are all the cops to stop this or do you and @NYCMayor only care about the poor people who can’t afford to pay and have to do this?? 🤔 and i’m not going to even start about if this was black people. They would have been shot 🤬
— Jamila (@Jamila_Pope) December 15, 2019
https://twitter.com/ohhellno202/status/1206302364522745856?s=20
https://twitter.com/sharilyn/status/1206580639912353792?s=20
The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) announced last month that it’s investing more money into having cops at subway stations.
Some said the Santas jumped the turnstiles in solidarity and they should be welcomed by protesters. But journalist Elizabeth Spiers said the actions only reinstate white privilege, not fight it.
“This is a stunt and not helpful. The only thing they’re demonstrating here is that they know they won’t face any real consequences for doing it. It’s a novelty to them. And there are real ways to fight these stupid racist fare evasion arrest policies,” Spiers tweeted.
https://twitter.com/espiers/status/1206238141952208898
When reached on Tuesday, MTA did not answer why cops were not made aware of this incident and directed the Daily Dot to the NYPD, which did not respond. SantaCon NYC did not immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comments.
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