Okay, so I'm on the bus coming home from work and reading this book. It's a good book, a funny book, I like it. I like it until p. 263 when the girl (this is a memoir) talks about taking the bus to LaGuardia Airport. Now, if you don't live in New York, let me explain that the easiest and fastest way to LGA is via a cab. However, you must be prepared to shell out about $25 cash for the ride. If you take the bus, however, the cost is only $1.50. It will take you longer, but well worth it if you're broke. Anyway, you take one bus to Harlem and then transfer to a different bus on to the airport.
So...the girl writes the following: "Just to make sure I was at the right stop, I asked a man standing next to me. 'Excuse me?' I asked. 'But am I at the right bus stop? I'm looking for the bus to the airport.' 'Yeah, duh,' he said rudely, motioning down to the bags lying next to him. The plastic bags lying next to him. I wanted to say, 'Oh, I'm sorry, sir, I didn't realize that the garbage bags at your feet were your suitcases.' But I didn't, because he might have beat me up."
Thought: Is it just me, or was she very wrong? Yes, the man she asked about the bus may have been rude in saying "Yeah, duh." But to go on with the garbage comment, even if they were garbage bags, was a bit out of line. It is not as if New York is the type of city where using a garbage bag to carry things is uncommon. Yes, the majority of people traveling use luggage, but a garbage bag is not all that strange either. And then, to withold her comment...not because it was insensitive to the gentlemen, but because "he might have beat me up." Why? Why might he have beaten her up? Is the fear of being beaten up in reference to his rudeness with "Yeah, duh?" Or is she afraid becasuse she was in Harlem? Just a paragraph earlier she wrote: But despite my fear, Harlem wasn't that bad. Maybe I'm reading too much in to what she's saying, but it really strikes a nerve with me when people are disrespectful b/c of race and class. And remember, this is a memoir, an autobiography...and this incident she describes occurred in December of 2001. Do people really think this way? Have we not come any farther than this type of thinking?
So...the girl writes the following: "Just to make sure I was at the right stop, I asked a man standing next to me. 'Excuse me?' I asked. 'But am I at the right bus stop? I'm looking for the bus to the airport.' 'Yeah, duh,' he said rudely, motioning down to the bags lying next to him. The plastic bags lying next to him. I wanted to say, 'Oh, I'm sorry, sir, I didn't realize that the garbage bags at your feet were your suitcases.' But I didn't, because he might have beat me up."
Thought: Is it just me, or was she very wrong? Yes, the man she asked about the bus may have been rude in saying "Yeah, duh." But to go on with the garbage comment, even if they were garbage bags, was a bit out of line. It is not as if New York is the type of city where using a garbage bag to carry things is uncommon. Yes, the majority of people traveling use luggage, but a garbage bag is not all that strange either. And then, to withold her comment...not because it was insensitive to the gentlemen, but because "he might have beat me up." Why? Why might he have beaten her up? Is the fear of being beaten up in reference to his rudeness with "Yeah, duh?" Or is she afraid becasuse she was in Harlem? Just a paragraph earlier she wrote: But despite my fear, Harlem wasn't that bad. Maybe I'm reading too much in to what she's saying, but it really strikes a nerve with me when people are disrespectful b/c of race and class. And remember, this is a memoir, an autobiography...and this incident she describes occurred in December of 2001. Do people really think this way? Have we not come any farther than this type of thinking?
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