Metro Incident

The things I have seen on the metro and this is Washington, DC for heavens sake! I think that peoples primal instincts come out while on the metro or they revert to childhood play ground mentality. People push, disrespect, shove and bully. It is not a pretty picture. I once saw a man shove a pregnant woman's belly to get off quickly and I almost had a heart attack.

Yesterday, I confronted a man who did not move his backpack for an elderly woman to sit down. In hindsite, I should not have done this because something bad could have happened, the man was rude, nasty, scary and perhaps crazy. But, it kills me to see people be disrespectful and inconsiderate for absolutely no reason.

This man had his headphones blasting and reflective sunglasses on and decided to put his backpack in the seat next to him during 6:00pm rush hour. The woman got on the train, at the same stop as me and asked the people around her if the backpack belonged to any of them, it didn't. Then, she proceeded to ask the aforementioned man if it was his, but he did not answer, despite looking straight at her. After several attempts, she grabbed the backpack and proceeded to move it a little to sit down, her balance was unsteady and she was about to fall. Upon doing this, he yanked it out of her hands, put it back down and stared at her, without saying a word, nothing at all. After a few seconds and another 'almost' fall, another person luckily got up and let her sit down, while I grabbed her arm.

But, I was appalled, furious and thus proceeded (perhaps stupidly) to tell him this. Well, the individual took off his sunglasses and headphones and started yelling at me (he could speak, surprise) to mind my own business. A few other people got involved and defended my point of view. Another guy took out his phone and started filming the man. After a few more minutes, he turned around and began shouting at the elderly woman, asking her if she would have grabbed the backpack if he WAS WHITE!? I saw the story from start to finish and I can assure you, it had absolutely nothing to do with the color of his skin. For the love of God!!