2006 vs. 1954
I was riding the subway today, not as my usual hour as my supervisor had let me leave a tad bit early, when I noticed a very different looking man get on. Different, even by New York Standards in that he was dressed in a Cowboy Suit, with a bullet-studded belt, black cowboy boots and a black cowboy hat to match. To add to that, he was about 6'3" tall, with blonde hair, blue eyes and a blonde mustache- an attention grabber to say the least.
I was on the 6 train platform when I noticed him and thought nothing much of him other than he must either be a) a tourist b) an actor or c) just someone comfortable in extreme cowboy attire.
The train however, gave him a very different response. An unwarm one to say the least. A couple of high school aged adolescents got on about a stop or two later. When they first walked in, they were laughing hysterically, I thought it was from a joke they may have shared before they got on, but the only joke they saw was this different man. One girl laughed so hard I was almost certain the conductor could hear her from our second to last cart.
They started with cowboy jokes and southern slang. They stared and they pointed and one girl even said, rather audibly "Look at him!" while she pointed and laughed.
I don't know how I stopped myself from telling them off. From asking them to see what they'd feel like in his situation. From telling them to accept differences and what they are not used to. Of course, these are high school aged teens, and would probably start poking fun of me as soon as I attempted to "save the cowboy" but I almost felt like I had a humanitarian need to do so.
They eventually got off, and the train went silent but the staring and the giggles didn't exactly stop there. As it turned out, he was taking the same path I was into Brooklyn and transfered to my same train.
This time, the people were a little older, I;d say maybe college-ages students, or simply young working adults. One young man pointed over to another young man the very obvious cowboy in front of him and they both started to laugh. They were somewhat more subtle than the girls prior though.
I just wonder what was going through that man's mind. Was this his first experience of New York City? If so, I wouldn't blame him if it were his only. Was he phased at all by the immaturity of our New York City straphangers or did he just accept that he looks different and somehow justify it by those means.
Whatever his case may be, he certainly looked upset. I couldn't tell if it was the normative nature of his serious face or a look of sorrow that swept him from ear to ear. All I knew was that we are not told enough about difference. We don't learn enough about difference we don't experience difference and we therefore feel it is our right (albeit an ignorant one) to judge difference when it crosses our path.
How different is this situation from 1954? Not much
I was on the 6 train platform when I noticed him and thought nothing much of him other than he must either be a) a tourist b) an actor or c) just someone comfortable in extreme cowboy attire.
The train however, gave him a very different response. An unwarm one to say the least. A couple of high school aged adolescents got on about a stop or two later. When they first walked in, they were laughing hysterically, I thought it was from a joke they may have shared before they got on, but the only joke they saw was this different man. One girl laughed so hard I was almost certain the conductor could hear her from our second to last cart.
They started with cowboy jokes and southern slang. They stared and they pointed and one girl even said, rather audibly "Look at him!" while she pointed and laughed.
I don't know how I stopped myself from telling them off. From asking them to see what they'd feel like in his situation. From telling them to accept differences and what they are not used to. Of course, these are high school aged teens, and would probably start poking fun of me as soon as I attempted to "save the cowboy" but I almost felt like I had a humanitarian need to do so.
They eventually got off, and the train went silent but the staring and the giggles didn't exactly stop there. As it turned out, he was taking the same path I was into Brooklyn and transfered to my same train.
This time, the people were a little older, I;d say maybe college-ages students, or simply young working adults. One young man pointed over to another young man the very obvious cowboy in front of him and they both started to laugh. They were somewhat more subtle than the girls prior though.
I just wonder what was going through that man's mind. Was this his first experience of New York City? If so, I wouldn't blame him if it were his only. Was he phased at all by the immaturity of our New York City straphangers or did he just accept that he looks different and somehow justify it by those means.
Whatever his case may be, he certainly looked upset. I couldn't tell if it was the normative nature of his serious face or a look of sorrow that swept him from ear to ear. All I knew was that we are not told enough about difference. We don't learn enough about difference we don't experience difference and we therefore feel it is our right (albeit an ignorant one) to judge difference when it crosses our path.
How different is this situation from 1954? Not much
posted by Maya at 5:14 PM
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