Back in the day, it seemed like riding public transportation was cheap, fast, efficient and you could get anywhere you wanted in your city without worrying about catching a beatdown -- that is, in a fantasy dreamt up by some dude on mushrooms.
Okay really, for as long as I can remember really riding the bus or subway could mean simply getting from point A to B, or it could mean risking getting jacked on any given day. New Yorkers who ran the public transit gauntlet in the 70s and 80s will feel me as they recall grafitti-strewn subway cars that looked like props from Fort Apache: The Bronx.
So a viral video of a subway attack on New York's 'A' train, taken by a teen filmmaker has brought a new round of voracious anger at black youth, who apparently just can't seem to behave on the train. And it must be said, the kids in this video did look pretty freakin' ignorant as they were wilding out on my man who has since pressed charges against them.
But wait, turn around and head a few hours south and now there are reports of worse attacks in Baltimore where Sarah Kreager (left), a 26-year-old white woman, was allegedly beaten by a group of black middle-schoolers, which was followed a few days later by another bus attack in which two white men were allegedly attacked by a group of black men. Both cases are stoking the racial flames in the town because the first is being investigated as a hate crime, and the second is said by the victims to be racially driven.
It's enough to bring the conservative cavalry out to pounce on urban America once again in the blogosphere and repeatedly on cable news channels with periodic calls for further isolation of minority youths and funding for prisons -- but curiously no calls for more education and recreational funding.
And hey, even those guys make a few fair points about kids wilding out on buses and trains. Yeah, at least on the surface all this seems to be the result of poor parenting, a failed family structure, nonexistant discipline or role models. You know, that "family values" stuff we've been hearing about since the Clinton years.
So man, if everybody is ready to jump down the throats of cavalier black parents and their wayward children, then surely they are willing to pounce on a group of New Yorkers who reportedly got into a fight on the subway over one set of riders wishing the others "Happy Hannukah." In fact, it became an all out free-for-all between Jews, Christians and even a Muslim with chutzpah.
I'm glad nobody was there to say "Happy Kwanzaa."
So, black eyes, broken noses and bruised egos (and knuckles) aside, blaming one group or another might not be a solution. Things like this don't happen very much in public buildings because security plans for them are really tight. Any incident would bring police there within minutes. Public transit on the other hand has violent incidents almost every day because the amount of post-9/11 security afforded for places like the Sears Tower or the Empire State Building is practically non-existent for buses and subways which regular people depend on to get back and forth on a daily basis. That is, except when they want to randomly search your bag, then security is at a peak.
Maybe I'm scared of a butt-kicking on the subway, but I'm more scared of paying for extravagantly priced-gasoline and parking, so that means better security on the subway is a must for those of us who brave the streets for government-run transit.
So the next time I hear about someone getting jumped on the train or the bus, I'll be just as likely to be angry at the people who raise fares for transit while simultaneously cutting funding -- thereby curtailing security-- as I am a bunch of unruly kids.
Then again, I've never seen anybody get smacked upside the head while they were roller skating to work.
1. These Occurrences Are Indeed Saddening. They're Indicative Of Further Deterioration Of Race Relations In America. These Kids Need Better Parenting, Better Education, And A Society That Really Cares About
Them. People Tend To Act Accordingly To How They Are Treated. If You Treat Them Like "Low-Life" Criminals Because Of The Way That They Look (Ethnicity/Age), Or How They Wear Their Clothes; Then, I Suppose That They Probably Will Not Think Kindly Of You And Those That Look Like You!
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JC at 12:47AM on Dec 19th 2007