Wednesday, October 21, 2009

morning commute

i ride the train (aka subway) a lot. I am on it for between 2 to 3 hours a day with my commute between Brooklyn and the Bronx. plus any additional joy riding that i squeeze in my days. the train is an interesting place and brings with it extremely interesting people. because there is such a range of riders there are some people who you may notice have some mental health issues and are just trying to make it through their day like anyone else. then there are people who are just plan mean, ignorant, and cruel; like my fellow rider this morning.

i ride 2 trains for my commute. i take the L train for about 10 minutes to get out of brooklyn and into Manhattan. in Manhattan i then switch to the 4 train and ride it uptown for about an hour to get to the bronx. this morning i switched onto the 4 train and and it was my lucky morning i was able to find a spot to sit. i sat down next to a man that only judging by his appearance seemed to be of middle eastern descent. across the isle from us was another man who had a rough look about him, in his 20s, wearing a baggy red sweatsuit. red was leaning across the isle towards the man next to me and saying the follow statements...

"i am going to fucking kills you, i am going to fucking find you and your towel head friends and slice them all, fuck you for coming to our country and fucking with us, i know where you live, i know when your kids brush their teeth, i am going to find them while they are brushing their teeth and fucking kill them..."

he continued basically repeating the same statements over and over. when i sat down i had my ipod on and between songs i caught what he was saying and quickly took my ear buds out so that i could hear better. once i realized he was clearly threatening the man i looked around in horror to see what my fellow riders were doing about it... nothing. no one was doing a thing. people were reading books and newspapers, staring at the wall, listening to their ipods, playing with their cell phones, but not one person was appearing to notice or step in on what this man was saying. even the man being threatened was playing with his iphone and not once looking up at his attacker.

so what do i do? i said something.

being short tempered and stunned that no one was stopping this harassment i decided to ask the gentleman who he was talking to.

"none of your fucking business. i am talking to my fucking self."
"ok. well i would prefer not to hear threatening statements on my morning commute, can you stop?"
"fuck you. who the fuck do you think you are? i know where you live. i am going to fucking come and kill you..." and on and on he went.

so i basically took the attention off the gentleman next to me and let it all come down on me. from 14th street until 149th street (when red got off the train). not one single person on a full train said anything to him as he continued to threaten and harass me the whole ride.

i exchanged a few more statements with him and then decided to stop. nothing i was going to say was going to change his mind on how he felt and no one on that train was going to back me up. at 149th street he stood up, got directly in face, made a gun gesture, and said he was going to find me.

not going to lie. the little wisconsin girl in me came out and i was scared.

as i continued to ride on until my stop i thought about how sad the whole situation was. why hadn't anyone stopped him? why hadn't anyone else stepped in? has our culture/generation/society truly become so individualistic or jaded that an instance like that doesn't call for attention?

i told the story to a coworker when i got to work. he told me that i needed to be careful and that people in the city don't mess around. he is right to a point, but i still think i did the right thing this morning. i can't sit by and let someone spread their hate like that. i believe that in not doing something you are truly as guilty as the individual committing the act. the idea that so many people live by the thought "you against the world" doesn't have to be so. speaking out creates community and communities make differences. make differences.

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