Making fun of?racists in ponchos

Stopping racism on public transit is complicated

I’ve been telling this same story about the time I saved an interracial couple from a racist man for over a decade until one person changed my perspective and I suddenly saw myself partly as the villain. But now three years later my view has changed once more.

As the story goes, I was commuting to work just like any other morning in Boston back in summer 2005.

I had my iPod Shuffle playing at max volume, so I couldn’t hear anything going on around me. I got on the subway and there wasn’t anywhere to sit so I stood with my back against the door and held the bar next to me. As I looked around, I noticed a strange energy in the car. Nobody was talking and everyone looked tense. Then I saw what was happening.

Seated to my immediate right was a sort of scruffy looking white man wearing a colorful South American poncho. Directly across from him was a Black man seated firmly upright. His gaze was unflinching and focused slightly above poncho man. His hands were pacing back and forth on his thighs. To his left was a white woman curled down small, clenching his arm and staring directly at poncho man.

The train had gone above ground as it crossed a bridge over the Charles River and I hit pause to see what’s happening. Right as I did, I heard the most hateful vile sentence that I’ve ever heard in person: “You f______ ______, you’re going to ruin that good white girl’s life.” I didn’t need to get off at the next stop but now I needed to get off at the next stop.

I stood there for what felt like an eternity but was probably 45 seconds as the train went back underground and slowed into the station. The whole while this man was in a continuous monologue of racist vomit.

As we approached the station, the poncho man stops, turns to me, and says, “How about you? What do you think of this f______ ______?”

I stared him in the eyes and could feel everyone in the train car staring at me. In a moment of panic, I calmly and in a friendly tone asked,?

“Why are you wearing a?poncho?”

Every single person screamed in laughter and this made him so upset. As he tried to adjust his posture, he had to ruffle around with his little poncho and it only made the laughter get louder.

The train arrived at the station and at that stop the doors happened to open on both sides. I dove out and as I looked back I saw poncho man running away out the other door and the people on the train smiling and waving back to me.

?

I’ve been telling this story at dinners, parties, and storytelling events since it happened. Every time I got the same reaction — laughter and lots of conversations about how you can’t reason with a man like that so humor was the best way to shut him up. But three years ago I told it while facilitating a storytelling workshop and one person did not laugh. She stood up and said, “I think this is an awful and sad story. You and all those people were silent and complicit as an innocent man was tortured right in front of your eyes. You only were the hero because the racist man approached you. You even said your plan was to get off and do nothing.”

I was crushed. Not because my perception of being the hero was destroyed but because I felt the pain of the couple sitting there while nobody did anything. It felt like we were all present for an execution of an innocent man and sat in silence.

So, I stopped telling the story. I was ashamed of myself and everyone on that subway ride. But then for some odd reason I felt compelled to tell the story once more at The House of Beautiful Business during a storytelling hour. This time instead of the story ending at the punchline, I went on to explain that woman’s reaction from the storytelling workshop and began sobbing on stage. Through my tears I spoke about my regrets of not interfering sooner and as I spoke about it, I vicariously felt a pain of suffering alone surrounded by people staring at me.

When I took the microphone that evening I had in my heart that this was the story’s swan song. I would air out my dirty laundry and never speak about ponchos again.

The brilliant souls at The House of Beautiful Business had a different plan for me though.

I was first approached right afterwards by a white Irish man. He told me about some illusionist who explained that he’s able to hypnotize people by first overloading their mind with tons of straight forward simple questions to get them on a predictable train of thought and will then eventually ask something totally random. It causes the subject to metaphorically be flashed by a bright light to blind them. My tone of voice and commenting on his fashion in reaction to his question was a flash that momentarily disabled him. It wasn’t the humor per se that did the trick but the unexpectedness.

Then a white American woman found me the following day and said she and her Black husband were in the crowd and loved the story. She explained that there have been many moments like this for them including one where she was certain they would be dead had her husband not read the signals and gotten them out. She reminded me that intervention can lead to violence. As a queer man, I had known this first hand and forgotten when the objection in my storytelling workshop happened. We went on to talk about how especially in the US where everyone’s just walking around with guns, intervention is often scarier than enduring the situation. She said they spoke about my story afterwards and felt no blame on me or the others.

And finally I had a third perspective over some drinks late in the evening with an eccentric Iranian man who had once lived in New York. He pointed out a few other things.

First of all, I didn’t have to hit pause. Some people would have seen what I saw and simply thought “another crazy homeless man” and just kept the music going. I consciously decided to join the situation.

Secondly, I am the physical archetype of who oppresses Black Americans — a very tall, white, blue eyed, man. The poncho man saw me as the authority. He chose me out of the crowd as the one who should confirm his accusations. When I didn’t, it foiled the plan.

And lastly, he wondered about the naivety of the white Swedish woman from the storytelling workshop who took huge objection to the story. Gender equality in Sweden is so mainstream that to speak up against sexism, for example, was obvious. But what would she know about speaking up about racism on a Boston subway? Her expectations are tied to her geography and biography as a straight white Swedish woman in Sweden.

So now I will keep telling my story and this is first time I’m putting it out on the internet because I finally see a fuller picture.

???Know that intervention can be dangerous. Be wise in how you approach the situation. I think the best thing I could have done was to stand in between the poncho man and the couple and then start talking to them about the weather or just anything random. I believe had I done that, more would have stood up and we could have formed a wall of protection around them.

???Be aware of how your personal identities affect your reactions to these situations. As a queer man who’s been threatened by violence, I think I shared the Black man’s avoidance of intervention. The white Swedish woman from the workshop has likely never been met with violence when speaking out in Sweden.

???But lastly above all, suffering alone is traumatic. Whether it’s a subway car or a meeting room, if someone’s personal identity is under attack, join in. While direct intervention may not be feasible for whatever reason, acknowledging that they’re not alone will make a difference. Lock eyes and figure out how to help them out of the situation.