I’ve been regularly riding the New York City subway now for nearly three years, and in all my time on it, the only response I’ve ever seen to randoms hurling racial invective is for everyone to move to another car.
New Yorkers are known for their indifference to absolutely everything that happens on their commute: people shitting in the corner, homeless veterans pleading for money, humans collapsing from heat stroke, nothing gets anyone to stop looking at their phone.
God himself could come to the F Train and announce everyone who merely smiled at him would be granted automatic admission into heaven, and he’d still get a dirty look or a blind eye from 95 percent of commuters.
So I LOL’ed when I saw this story making the rounds.
Here’s the unbelievable story, which started going viral after this tweet garnered 5,000 RTs.
From the Facebook page of Amaira Carter.
Just now, on my way to work, a man got on my train yelling as he came onto an incredibly packed train for the “two terrorist foreigners to go back to where they came from.” These two “terrorist foreigners” were two (understandably terrified) hijabi Muslim women. Before I could say anything, the entire train erupted in anger. A black man, a Romanian, a gay man, a bunch of Asians, and a score of others came to their defense demanding that this man leave these women alone and get off this train. The man insisted that the two women go back home and take their bombs with them.
After some back and forth, one man said, “This is New York City. The most diverse place in the world. And in New York, we protect our own and we don’t give a fuck what anyone looks like or who they love, or any of those things. It’s time for you to leave these women alone, Sir.”
I couldn’t have said it better. Sure enough, our train was stopped. This royal douche got off the train to the sound of cheering.
I say all this to say that in light of all the bad happening around us, remember that there’s so much good and so much love.
I’m late to work, but it was for the best reason.
It’s gotten something like 30,000 shares on FB, and has been picked up by a few news sites, but it’s also probably a complete load of crap. For starters, it reads like the start of a colorful, slightly racist joke (an Irishman, and Italian, and a German walk into a bar) mixed with a child’s fable (look what happens when people of different creeds come together!) that makes the whole read seem implausible from its first word.
Second, when pressed by a reporter at Gawker, the woman’s explanation of how she knew the people were gay, Romanian, and other races was downright laughable.
Ahh, yes, that’s exactly how a crowd of people in the subway talk, with theatrics and pomp on their morning commute, after disarming racists with their words and can-do attitude.
Hey, I love a feel good, come together story as much as the next Bro, but maybe next time let’s make them sound slightly more realistic?
But what do you think?
[H/T @libbycwatson]