Subway Stories 2, in which I get mad.
OK, so forgive me if I come off as angry or something because I just felt really mad in a way that I didn’t remember I could feel. Plus I’m not really going to edit it, so, you know. As-is.
I’m taking the B train home to Brooklyn from Manhattan and it’s unusually crowded. Usually there’s a surprising amount of space on that train at 7 or so but today it was crazy. An Asian woman got on at Grand Street (ahem), speaking what sounded like Japanese to her two toddlers, one boy and one girl, who were each carrying brand-new toys bigger than themselves. It was adorable. I was standing in the middle of the train, holding the pole, and had headphones in, but it seemed like they were just getting in from a nice shopping trip. Very cute.
So they get pushed into the train, basically, and are looking around trying to find someplace to sit for these kids who are like barely taller than the seats. Every seat is taken. The way the walking pattern worked, they ended up right next to these two sitting white ladies. One was maybe in her late 50s, the other probably early 30s. Both looked down at the ground, reading intently. They were both really obviously trying to ignore them. There was nowhere else for the kids to sit and nowhere else for them to walk. They couldn’t even really grab a pole because of the way everyone was situated, and besides, kids’ hands aren’t that big.
The train starts moving and the kids fall down, basically, so they’re sitting on the floor of the train. They’re happy enough, but the mom had to keep holding onto them awkwardly while also reaching for something to steady her every time the train jolted, and it was just really stressful. Like, really stressful. She kept falling. I felt awful, but again, headphones in, several people away—not much I could do. I just couldn’t believe that those able-bodied women, who were literally sitting above these children, were ignoring them entirely.
Then.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, we pull into Atlantic Avenue, the kids are still sitting on the floor, being jostled around, the mom is looking exasperated, and ten people are getting ready to step over the kids to get onto the train. The two white ladies, realizing that the train is about to get crowded and they have to get off at the next stop (ahem). How gracious.
Actually, the younger lady was really nice, and actually helped one of the kids get up on her seat so that one of the rabid commuters entering the train wouldn’t take it first. The older lady stepped over the other child (like one would step over a rock or something) and grabbed the same pole I was holding. This was already the most angry I had felt in a while, watching that woman just act as if the poor kids didn’t even exist.
Two pregnant black women who had entered the train grabbed the pole too, and when the train started moving, they started looking at the kids (now perched on the seats vacated by the white ladies) and smiling and cooing and saying how cute they were (I imagine—headphones), when the older white lady raised her eyebrows and looked at them (the black women, I mean) and started to say something.
This, I had to hear. Headphones out. She put her hand over her mouth as if saying something secret or embarrassing, all Stepford-y. “She let those kids sit on the floor,” she said.
What. the. actual. fuck.
1. You prevented those kids from sitting on a seat like a human being, and you know it.
2. The way you said “she” actually made me shiver. The pernicious, excited tone in your voice is the most fucked-up kind of Orientalism I’ve encountered in my short life.
3. Then you nodded your head and raised your eyebrows like you couldn’t believe that such undignified animals existed in the world. Lady, it’s you.
4. I know that it seems like a stretch to call this racist, because, you know, she didn’t explicitly say anything. Believe me. The disdain in her voice was dripping. If the mom had been just speaking English, things would have been different.
Somehow, I guess because they weren’t there to see the whole thing, one of the black women said “I’ll never let my child sit on the subway floor, no, no,” and the other one nodded. I put my headphones back in my ears, not wanting to hear what happened next, because the woman was making me feel sick. I glared at her for the rest of the ride.
I don’t think she caught my glance, so when the doors open at Seventh Ave, I pushed her just gently from behind. Just enough for her to trip a little. Not enough for her to fall, mind you, but enough to look a little foolish. Oops. It really did make me feel better.
Oh, and the best part was that she exited left out of the station. Know what that means? Park Slope, bitches. Way to represent your neighborhood, which, while home to many awesome people, tends toward old rich snobby white fucks.
Anyway, if you’re ever on that train to 7th Ave a little after 7PM and you see this fucking lady reading a copy of the Times, wearing a long black puffy coat, continuously touching her long grey (dyed bright red) frizzy hair, kick her in the shins. You know. For the kids.
