Should I have said something?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I was riding the Red Line in Los Angeles and got off at the Westlake/MacArthur Park station and took the elevator instead of the escalator to get to the street. There were about ten Latinos, two African Americans, and me-a white guy in the elevator. I am guided by the belief that I embrace difference and can get along with everybody. I can honestly say if I was making a list of people I have considered my best friends as I grew up, the majority of them were black or Latino. I know this might sound self serving but I like to hang out with people a little different from myself and learn new things.

Anyway...

While we were in the elevator the African American woman who appeared to be in her forties was arguing with a a young Latin male who appeared to be in his late teen or early twenties. He was smirking a bit but wasn't saying much other than he wasn't being disrespectful. The African American woman told him "not to disrespect her" and was calling him a "bean eating mother fu--er" and telling him she had "homeboys who could kick his ass."

Nobody in the elevator said anything. I felt like saying that Dr. King said we should try to love one another but didn't say anything.

It made me think of what Robert Kennedy said about sending out ripples of hope that when one person sends out a ripple of hope it inspires others. When people send out ripples of hate it inspires other in the opposite direction.

[LaydeeBug]

1. Yes, you should have said something. Our lives begin to end the moment we remain silent about things

that matter<<<------that's parqueting Dr. King as well.

I've said it before here, and I will say it again: the opposite of racism is INCLUSION. There is no such thing as reverse racism, and anyone saying so is just lying to you or themselves. What that woman did was RACIST, plain and simple. I am a minority. Dishing it is the same no matter the stripe of the person.

[Iggo]

2. "Bigot."

Or nothing at all.

The disdainful smirk seems to have been working.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. I think he smirked because she used a pejorative usually reserved for Mexicans-"beaneater"

And he was Latino but I don't think he was Mexican.

I think he realized he only had to endure it for twenty seconds or so.

I forgot. She also called him a "bitch ass nigga".

[CincyDem]

3. 13 people in a 10x10x10 box...

...personally, I'd look for a different venue to start those ripples.

Maybe it's a cop out to inaction but it seems like a situation ripe for some kind of ricochet reaction. Unpredictable. Little time for people to understand why you might choose to insert yourself into the conversations of others.

13 histories, 13 prejudices (good, bad or indifferent) and 13 agendas...all wrapped up in 1000 cubic feet.

Nope - I'd be looking for a different place to start this conversation.

[Shankapotomus]

4. You were going to quote Dr. King back to an upset black woman?

In an elevator?

You made the right call.

[NightWatcher]

7. I'm sure that would've worked out swell

I was going to make that exact point, but I like the way you phrased it better.

[NightWatcher]

5. You were smart to stay out of it.

Anything you would've said to her would have shifted her focus and anger towards you.

[pennylane100]

8. I would definetly have kept my mouth shut.

This woman had some serious anger issues. As the doors opened at the end of your ride, you might have, very politely, suggest that she get help, but only if you can see your way clear to making a hasty exit and a opportunity of getting lost in the crowds.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. Even if I told her in the politest way imaginable to get help she would have went off.

I did desperately want to say we are all God's children.

[bettyellen]

30. you would have pissed me off. but I am a staunch atheist, lol.

[merrily]

10. When it's a dozen total strangers of any hue and me

in an elevator, I sure don't butt into any argument between or among the strangers. I just hope the doors open soon so I can get out, even if it's not my floor

You don't know who is sane and who isn't, who is armed and who isn't, who knows karate or CPR and who doesn't.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. It really wasn't about politics but about being nice to one another./NT

[merrily]

12. But it was an argument.

[Avalux]

13. Maybe you should have hoped the elevator got stuck.

Perhaps if the two of them had been forced to spend an hour together, they would have discovered they liked each other as people.

My desire is that everyone can learn to look past skin color and get to know people as people.

Ignorance sucks.

[hunter]

14. I love Los Angeles.

The only reason I don't live there is that I hate automobiles and commuting.

Verbal altercations like this are part of daily life.

If it was a white guy spewing racist crap in the same crowd he'd probably be bleeding on the floor already, and it might have been the woman who took him down. I wouldn't want to be there.

The way I read this confrontation it was about a woman telling some young punk to respect his elders. If the kid had been black, she'd have been calling him the "n" word, if white, something equally offensive. Both sides in this disagreement, whatever it was about, knew the score. Remaining an uninvolved bystander, like the other people in the elevator, wasn't unreasonable. It wasn't about you, it wasn't escalating into a violent situation, and regardless of the language, from what you describe, the primary dynamic didn't seem to be about racism.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. I wasn't there to see what started the argument.

Maybe two people getting in the elevator at the same time.

But I respectfully disagree that race wasn't part of the dynamic. "Beaneater" has to be way up there on the list of racial epithets. One can make their point, even obscenely, without bringing race into it.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

17. Agree wholeheartedly

I don't see how anyone could read this and say with a straight face that racism wasn't exhibited by the woman.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. She was upset. I get it. I came in the middle of the argument.

She may have even been the aggrieved party. I don't know.

I don't just don't get why people have to express they are upset in racial teems. Maybe the young man was a "mother f--ker". But why did he have to be a "bean eating" one? Assholes are assholes and nice people are nice people.

[hunter]

19. Years ago I was a science teacher in Los Angeles.

My classes were a volatile mix of black and Hispanic kids. Their parents could be pretty volatile too.

It was a bit of cultural shock for me since my own high school was Ivory Soap 99.44% suburban white.

I hated high school so I quit for college. I wanted to be a teacher because I wanted to change things. But I'm not a gifted teacher like my wife, and the system wears one down. The teachers who survive in impoverished urban public schools are either extraordinarily gifted humanitarians, or else they are people who can build thick protective shells around their hearts, maintain classroom discipline in an authoritarian manner, go home, maybe have a drink, and forget about work. I was in danger of turning into one of the thick-shell-around-my-heart sorts and I didn't like it, which is why I'm not teaching.

I haven't lived in a place where the majority of people are white for most of my life now. I've also lived in some pretty rough neighborhoods. The neighborhood we now live in isn't so rough but we still get a lot of graffiti on our walls, searchlights from police helicopters in the night, and other nonsense.

As a white guy, with all the cultural baggage that carries (and often the blindness too,) I really don't know anything about racism because I've never experienced it first-hand and I've never lived in a culture that wasn't historically dominated by white men, or where white men are oppressed.

My only authentic windows into that world are my Mexican-American wife and our kids' friends. In our community our kids and their cousins make jokes about "their white friend." That would be one of our kids who, by some roll of the genetic dice, inherited every Irish Catholic gene my wife and I both carry. That's not friends being racist, it's a sly dig on the culturally dominant society.

If I was a white guy with a white wife living in white suburbia then having a Stephen Colbert "black friend" would be racist.

Granted, there is severe friction between some cultures. In Mexico there is a hierarchy favoring white over black, Asian, or Native American, and some of that may have been in play in the confrontation you witnessed.

Even so, the situation you witnessed would not have been the same if a white woman of the same age had lit off with the same language on the same kid.

[davidpdx]

22. I think you did the right thing given you weren't privy to how the argument started

The males may have used a racist remark to begin with (if so, the woman was equally wrong to do the same). If you had gotten involved, you don't know what reaction either party would have had and whether it would have inadvertently lead to violent behavior.

Being in an enclosed space (an elevator) is about the worst place for an argument to break out.

[TeamPooka]

15. When I'm in a crowded elevator like that I turn to everyone and say...

"Thank you all for coming today. The murderer is in THIS room."

[davidpdx]

23. Or say

"Did you feel that? I think the cable snapped. We are all going to die!"

No, not a good idea. That would be like yelling fire in theater.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. I was on a silly board where a poster mused what to do if a elevator crashed.

There is so much redundancy and then safeguards if that redundancy fails that crashing is remote. As to cables there are several of them when a elevator can function with many less than that.

[davidpdx]

25. Yes, hopefully

That's assuming everything has been maintained top notch. I've been in a few that I seriously wondered though.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

26. Me too, but the likelihood is you would get stuck

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/elevator-plunges-are-rare-because-brakes-and-cables-provide-fail-safe-protections/2013/06/07/e44227f6-cc5a-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html

[pipi_k]

20. OK, what would have been your

motive for saying something?

To try and change the woman's mind? Probably not. Sounded like there might have been some kind of mental or emotional thing going on there. So forget that.

To look good in front of the other people? You can do that without saying a word. A simple eye roll and slight shake of the head would have conveyed your disapproval to the others, I would imagine.


And this whole business about speaking out against stuff like that really makes me shake my head sometimes. There were ten Latinos present. Did any of them make a comment? Didn't sound like it. So if they didn't, why would you think it's up to you to do it?

Would your words, as a white person, carry more meaning...more power... than the words of ten Latinos?

Did they look like they needed help from the all-powerful White Guy?

Please understand that I'm not really directing this rant toward you specifically.

But it just makes me wonder sometimes why white people think they have to act like minorities are too weak to speak up for themselves. Like maybe children. Or the elderly. Or the mentally disabled. We should always defend people who can't defend themselves.

I'm not so sure we should treat certain groups as if they're infants incapable of speaking up for themselves.


So anyway, ten Latinos. If none of them spoke up, then you didn't need to, either. Like I said, though, if you want to express disapproval, a slight eye roll or facepalm with a small shake of the head would have let the others in the elevator know you didn't agree with that woman. I think you did exactly the right thing.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. This whole episode was maybe thirty seconds or less.

I took a cursory look at all the people in the elevator and looked at the African American guy. He looked like he just wanted to get out of the elevator. The Latinos had a quizzical look on their faces.

[Nye Bevan]

27. Keep your mouth shut and don't get involved.

The teaching moment is not worth the risk to your personal safety.

[jberryhill]

28. Why?

Because as the white guy in the elevator, you were in charge of how people choose to speak to one another.

If they were just exchanging words, there's no problem.

If it were Philadelphia, the traditional thing to say is, "The City of Brotherly Love." That one always gets a chuckle when two people are going at it in public.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

31. IMHO, we are all responsible for treating each other civilly regardless of our race, creed...

IMHO, we are all responsible for treating each other civilly regardless of our race, creed, religion, or sexual orientation.

[jberryhill]

32. the person whose behavior you are responsible for...

...is your own.

I find that keeps me busy enough.

[Wella]

29. Isn't it interesting how easily intimidated we are by bigotry that we remain silent.

The threat of physical violence has always backed up bigotry, whether it was the KKK or just some people in an elevator.