We Don't Think We're Responsible for Each Other Anymore
When did helping become someone else’s job?
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The 7 train runs through neighborhoods where a lot of folk work graveyard shifts. It’s never empty and frequently home to crazy but harmless, annoying subway preachers, or mariachi bands. Yesterday, half-asleep, I heard something start to pop off. A woman at the far end of the subway car jumped up and attacked, verbally and physically, the woman sitting next to her. A girl —a tween, barely a teen if even—who seemed to be the daughter or niece of the woman being attacked, put herself between the two of them as best she could from a seated position.
That woman’s anger flared up.
The train was full, but not overcrowded.
No one was doing anything.
Just this kid.
It shouldn’t be a kid’s responsibility to defend one adult from another. That’s what the village is for, so kids can have childhoods and not have to be grown-ups before their time. No one in our village was doing anything.
I walked over, locked eyes with the seated woman and the girl and said, in that tone you reserve for long-lost friends, “Maria, how are you? I haven’t seen you in like forever.” I leaned in, as if for a cheek kiss. The girl whispered “Thank you,” and greeted me loudly with an enthusiastic, “Hi, hello.”
A subway car full of people did nothing. It was just us. Me, the kid, the woman being attacked and the angry woman who’d plopped back down in her seat. “Ima sit here. Ima stay here, I don’t care who you got sitting with you.” She flicked her eyes at me, then glared at the silent woman.
The focus changed, the situation de-escalated.
I whispered I’d walk off with them at the next stop. There’s always another train. We left the angry woman behind, staring daggers at us.
Maybe there was a reason for the beef, someone’s infidelity or something. Maybe it was just unfocused or unfounded, crazy and angry, like the woman on the C train recently who screamed “Jews are eating kids,” then choked a nearby woman, tearing out a clump of hair, while passengers moved out of the way. The woman who’d been attacked that day said, “a ton of people were like ‘Oh, we saw what happened, are you okay?’”
The why of this attack, of any unfair balance of power attack, doesn’t matter to me. It’d gotten physical and a child was the only one taking any action.
The angry woman on the 7 train could’ve taken me, easily. I knew that she may’ve felt safe going after a young woman, wasn’t going to be intimidated or put off by a child, but going after an older white lady? That wouldn’t play the same way in court or in the press.
On a different train, on a different day, a wiry, kinda sketchy, a little dirty man was harassing a young woman. She didn’t respond, and changed her seat several times, finally moving to another car. It wasn’t crowded and I’d been watching the three men sitting opposite me. A well-muscled man, the kind who wears spandex shorts and sleeveless tops to show that off, shrugged his shoulders and closed his eyes.
When the man started to follow the girl into the next car, there was a choice : follow him or speak up. I’m lazy. And, I was comfortable where I was. Loudly—my voice carries— from where I sat, ”Hey bud, it’s clear she’s not interested in you. Why don’t you just sit down and leave it alone?”
The three men just sat as if nothing was going on, eyes closed or staring into space. The man forgot about the girl he’d been following and started harassing me. Not sexually, just saying mean things and trying to get me to take the bait. He continued for stop after stop.
I hadn’t changed him, I’d interrupted the flow and shifted his attention, distracted him.
I wasn’t scared; I was disappointed in the other passengers, those three men and a lone woman about my age. I wouldn’t have expected her to speak up first, but I’d thought she wouldn’t be so hesitant to be a second voice.
The young girl on the 7 train had thanked me as they walked safely away. She’d instinctively understood how the village worked in a way it seemed the rest of the adults in the car had forgotten.
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Yes I’m a villager too, 68 as well. Bravo for you! I like your idea how to intervene and try to stop the violence. I will remember that for the future. I would have been more confrontational as an immediate response but that probably wouldn’t have helped nor, I’m sure gotten those self centered individuals sitting there to provide aid either!!
Great story from an urban villager. Shame on those who sit silently by.