The anxiety of holding seats in crowded Black spaces

OPINION: A recent experience of trying to save a seat in a room full of Black people stressed me out so thoroughly that I may never try again.

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

There are two types of Black people in this world: 1.) those who can walk into church on Easter Sunday, “hold” five prime seats and stare down ushers into acceptance that those seats are taken; or 2.) me. 

I’m the kind of person, and representative of the kind of Black people, who hate being asked to hold seats anywhere. I almost never experience anxiety in public settings and rarely am I nervous or concerned about who is around me. But when I’m in a public space, and I’ve been asked to save seats by a person who isn’t there and won’t be for quite some time, I get fidgety. I get sweaty. I get stressed. I wilt quickly and fold soon thereafter. I don’t like holding seats for people, and I don’t ask people to hold seats for me. I don’t like laying my burdens down at the riverside of a person who was on time. 

But alas, in the Black community, “seat holding” is a thing — a sport, even. I’ve watched (and I’m dead serious; “no cap” as the kids would say) an elderly Black woman tell an usher at church that she was holding an entire row, and got indignant with the ushers who suggested that she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t believe they thought she couldn’t hold a row of seats and they couldn’t believe that she couldn’t believe that she couldn’t do that. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. My wife is one of those people who will hold all the seats requested and risk a public display of “Who will break first, loudly?” over said seats. She will also be quite annoyed with me when I’m unable to do so. Marriage, right? 

If I may, I’d like to share with you all a recent experience I had trying to save a seat that sent me not only out of a building but into an overflow room where I could no longer see anything because of the stress of trying to hold a seat for a person. Also, as you can tell, I failed that assignment with tremendous aplomb. 

A few weeks ago, a famous homie of mine was doing a book talk at a bookstore in a famed Washington, D.C., establishment. Now, before this talk, I’d been to that bookstore before — many times — and I’d also been to many book talks given by the homie. In my head, there was going to be a math problem afoot; there was absolutely no way this store could accommodate the number of people who would show up for this talk. Spoiler alert: I was not wrong. 

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Because I fancy myself to be a forward-thinking individual, I anticipated this math problem and got myself to the store early enough to get a seat but late enough to get, like, one of maybe three seats left. Many people must have had the same thoughts I did about the math not mathing given the space limitations of this bookstore. Anyway, I got in there and sat down on a stool and then watched a parade of people, mostly Black, who got there after me try to figure out their seating situation. As more people, and especially elder Black people trickled in, I prepared to give up my seat and use my younger legs to stand for the entirety of the show. 

And then I got a text message from a friend who asked me to save her a seat. Now, this friend cannot stand for long periods of time so I was going to have to save her my seat (which I was already prepared to give up) or we’d have to leave the event together; that option wasn’t on the table; we were there to see our friend be amazing and do author things. 

But here’s the problem: My friend who asked for the seat was at least 15 minutes away and the stream of people coming in was growing. Not only that, my seat was on the aisle where people were walking in, which meant everybody, including women who looked like my grandmother, could see me NOT giving up my seat. I looked like the young kid on a subway car not giving up my seat to seniors or pregnant women. Here’s the thing: I knew why I wasn’t getting up but they didn’t, and I couldn’t look my grandmother in the face and say, “Hey, I’d give you my seat but I’m saving this seat for a woman younger than you but older than me who potentially has a leg problem and wouldn’t care about you not getting this seat.” Nobody asked, they just looked. 

As each minute ticked by, I sweated more and more and more and more people appeared to stare at me. I have no idea if that actually happened or not but that’s what I felt like, and it made me feel uncomfortable and judged. I kept texting the homie for an estimated time of arrival who responded with “I’ll be there in 5 minutes” texts for more than 5 minutes. I let her know that I didn’t think I could hold the seat for much longer because I was starting to look like I wasn’t raised right. 

Then the book event organizer got on the microphone and pointed out that there were space issues and that those of us who were able should relinquish our seats to those who were older than us or might need to sit down, and I felt like she was talking directly to me when she said it. She mentioned an overflow situation outside on a back deck as an alternative for all of us who either needed a seat or needed to give up our seats. At this point, my stress and anxiety were at their highest levels; my heart was beating fast and my palms were sweaty. I couldn’t take it anymore. I got up out of my seat and didn’t look at anybody and said, “Seat’s open” and quickly skirted out to the overflow situation while texting my friend that I couldn’t hold the seat any longer. 

It’s been weeks since that night, and I still remember how I felt trying to hold that seat. It made me so uncomfortable and I knew my wife would have been just fine. Oh, about that overflow situation — it was terrible. The venue had no idea what they were doing and set up a television with a projector during sunset which made it impossible for anybody to actually see what was happening. Nice idea, terrible execution, but at least I wasn’t stressed anymore. I was annoyed for a little while that this venue didn’t think to lock down a bigger venue for the talk, considering who they were bringing in, but that’s water under the bridge now. 

I’m OK now; thanks for asking. But one thing for sure and two things for certain, the next time I walk into a space that I know will be crowded, I’ll just skip the seating thing altogether and prepare to stand on business in front, back or either side. Sure, my back may hurt and my legs may ache, but at least I won’t feel stressed or judged. 

If you have a friend who can’t handle holding seats, please don’t make them do it. It’s too much. 

Thank you for coming to my Panama Talk. 

Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).

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