Big Mouth Strikes Again

Taking on Our Future
... one punk at a time

Yep, I'm on a roll. Today it involved the subway ride to work. I took the C line to Union Square. I entered at the 81st St. station. A young kid was slumped in to spaces with his ball cap pulled down over his eyes listening to an iPod. I tapped his knee. He looked up. I asked him if I could sit down. He looked down. I tapped again. He told me he was sleeping and to leave him alone. I took another seat a few spots down thinking how rude he was but it wasn't worth the fight. I looked up to see the kid across from him laughing with him. I asked, 'What's so funny?". The kid told me to mind my own business. I told him he was rude. He said he wasn't doing anything wrong. I said his friend was. He said he wasn't talking to me, to mind my own business, he was allowed to laugh at whatever he wanted to. I told him I was allowed to call him rude. We all went back to solitary ways including all the passengers around us who were ignoring this behavior. The laughing kid got off at 59th but the obnoxious kid got off at my stop at Union Square. I decided to confront him. I first looked him in the eye asking, "Why act like that?" He turned away ignoring me so I pulled one of his earpods out. He yelled at me to back off. I proceeded to ask him question as if a 4th grade teacher, things like, "What if your mother or grandmother needed a seat?" and "Where is this coming from because it's not me? You don't even know me." He pretty much limited his responses to the following which he repeated often:

"Back off!"
"I'm going to punch you in the face."
"Get out of my face."
"You want me to hit you cause I'll hit you!"

The strangest and most racist comment was,

"Back off you little white woman or I'll hit you."

The kid was Latino so I found it sad he would resort to racial slurs ... but at least he didn't cuss.

I never felt threatened but I think he did. He kept backing up as I pursued him in conversation. I wanted to know what drove such rude behavior from such a teenager. He kept trying to get away from me. He only gestured in an aggressive way by throwing air at me after I turned my back to walk to the L line. He didn't think I saw him so I turn to recognize the action. I said, "That's all you have? Air? You're just fighting yourself at this point."

It felt good to confront the boy. It will likely not make a difference in his life but he will know there is at least one little white woman out there who isn't scared. I think we lose a piece of our humanity when we don't stand up to bad behavior from punks. Even small actions of courtesy and kindness matter in a community as crowded as NYC, in fact they matter more because we are so packed, so diverse, so varied. So I try. And I will continue to try to be a good neighbor, giving up my seat to those who need it .... and even confronting those who don't act as kindly. Maybe it will help, maybe not. But I have to try. That 4th grad teacher in me refuses to die.