[tritone]

This was my morning... I wanted to share it. You might think I was a fool - but I think it is an interesting story none the less...

Passing Judgment In The Subway
December 12th, 2008

I write a lot about the subway. I spend a lot of time there. It can be a depressing place. It can be a fascinating place.

The train was not full today. I left for work quite a bit later than usual and missed all the rush. I sat down in my favorite seat on the end near the door. A man got on the train and began to panhandle for change.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen… My name is John… I am homeless… Can you spare some change so I can get something to eat…?”

This is a daily event. There is always someone who gets on the train asking for money. As a rule, I do not give out money in the subway. I just don’t. I don’t often have money readily accessible and getting one’s wallet out in public in New York City is one of those things you try not to do.

John was nicely dressed in comparison to some of the other panhandlers. He was young and wearing clean clothes.

When John got to the other end of the train, he said,

“Thank you, God bless, have a nice day…”

This is typical - but I always thought it was at least somewhat polite.

At this point, a middle-aged man sitting at the other end of the car spoke to John,

“Are those ROCKPORTS you are wearing on your feet…?”

John replied, “Rock WHAT…?”

Man, “Those are $200 shoes… and you are here begging in the subway… why are you begging…”

John, “WHAT? $200? Hell no! If that’s true, I’ll sell them to you for $100 right now!”

Then there was more conversation back and forth… the self-righteous comments from the man; and John’s replies… it was pretty clear John was a bit off balance…

As I listened to this unfold, the anger in me began to grow, and grow, and grow…

Finally I walked over to them. I spoke to the man -

“What gives you the right to pass a judgment on him? What do you know?”

The man laughed uncomfortably and mumbled something about begging and handouts…

I said, “Would you like me to pass a judgment against you…? Well… I think you are an ASSHOLE”

At this point I pulled out my wallet, gave John $20 and returned to my seat.

You could have heard a pin drop.

John got off the train and as we pulled into the next stop, a man across from me said, “I really respect that…”

He and another man across from him were talking about it - and there was a LOT of love coming my way this morning on the subway… People were smiling at me and nodding their heads in approval.

I just felt shaken. I still feel shaken - out of breath and a little sick to my stomach.

I’m not sure I believe in Karma or rewards anymore. That wasn’t why I did it. I fully expected nobody would say a thing to me. I did it because I was angry. I did it because somebody needed to say SOMETHING.

Nobody has a right to sit in judgment. Nobody knew what John’s situation was. Maybe he’s an addict, maybe not. Maybe he is schizophrenic and lives on a substinence income from the government. Maybe this is just his way of getting a little extra coin - for whatever he needs it for. Maybe he can’t work. Maybe he really is homeless.

If you don’t want to give people money in the subway, don’t. That is a perfectly acceptable choice. In fact, the MTA asks that you do not.

Just don’t make judgments against people. You don’t have the right

[mistiis]

....as the saying goes, 'walk a mile in my shoes'
So many who have mental health issues end up on the street...it is so sad. People tend to judge, it seems to be human nature. But, when you experience it yourself, the light goes off. I applaud you!

[Mari]

Tritone,
If a guy is going to wander the subways, he should have decent footwear.

It's amazing to me how your action of getting up, engaging the idiot, and then giving the panhandler $20.00 had so much effect on the car.
And those actions effected you as well.


If nothing more, you gave the other guys something to talk about when they got to their next stop.

Mari

[befuddled2]

very good experience.

befuddled2

[Brokenfriend]

Judging people isn't loving people. Love is always the answer. We just don't know what the other person is going through. Criticism is sort of close to judging another.

Just a little friendly nudge is sufficient to help the other person see when he,or she has slightly veered off the track. BF

[tritone]

lol. you are funny Mari ...

NY is a different kind of place - so to really feel this I think you have to have spent some time here. The social dynamics involved in the subway mass transit experience are pretty involved. I'm sure it would make a great dissertation... There is a class element, there is a wide range of ethnicities, stereotypes...

I guess I hope that the fellow criticizing the pan-handler will think about his behavior and attitude. I've been in HIS shoes and made an @22 of myself in front of people before. I've also been corrected. I've felt humiliated; but I've learned from it.

When the fellow began his criticism of the fellow in the faux Rockport shoes, he involved the entire car. He spoke in a loud voice that invited all in ear shot to hear him.

I know that when I behave that way it is because I'm seeking the attention and approval of the people around me - and generally that I think they share my sentiment.

Again, you have to understand NYC at this level.

So for me to call him out on that was a shock to him. He had no idea how any of us were perceiving him.

For the people around him it was an affirmation that a middle class white man would stand up in the panhandler's defense. (he was not a white man)

The man doing the criticizing was of Indian/Pakistani ethnic background.

So you have to understand all of that before you get the full flavor of the story...

The ethnicities don't matter, but the dynamic they create - the expections, the unspoken beliefs matter a LOT.

Originally Posted by Mari

Tritone,
If a guy is going to wander the subways, he should have decent footwear.

It's amazing to me how your action of getting up, engaging the idiot, and then giving the panhandler $20.00 had so much effect on the car.
And those actions effected you as well.


If nothing more, you gave the other guys something to talk about when they got to their next stop.

Mari

[Mari]

Tritone,
When I was a kid I used to visit NYC with my mom and whatever other kids / cousins she could drag along. (We had relatives on Long Island we visited once a year or so.) We would often take the subway. She was totally creeped out by the subway and would warn us about not doing this or remembering to do that.

The last time I was there (late 1990s around Christmas time), my sis and I took my now hubby into the city since he had never been there. We took the Long Island commuter train to the city and got ourselves to Battery Park / Statue of Liberty (via subway? --can't remember). Then we took the subway up to the Empire State Building because he loves the old King Kong movie. After that we walked to Penn Station to go back to Long Island.

At one point in the subway, my sister had a melt down and completely lost her sense of direction. I had to grab her and hubby and tell them which train we were getting on.
It was weird because I had last been there 15 years earlier and was not sure where to go either.
Hubby loved the trip but felt like he was in a foreign county.

Later sis and I had a big huge drag out screaming match in the middle of Penn Station (?) during rush hour.

I remember being aware of thousands of people rushing past us and no one noticing us because it was NYC and rush hour.

So I have been in the subway -- not as a regular rider, but I can say I was there. We weren't concerned much about the folks in the cars with us.
We were focusing on which stop, which train next . . .

M.

[tritone]

I don't want this to sound smug, because it isn't. I've been a tourist too... What is really funny is that us regular city folks can spot the visitors a mile away... I was walking down the street the other day and there were some tourists standing there, and this older woman walking in the other direction looks at me, smiles, shakes her head, and says, "you can spot 'em a million miles away can't ya?" It was kind of funny...

We were coming from my neighborhood uptown, which is not a tourist area on the A express going south. No tourists... Just regular folks from Washington Heights and Harlem going to work...

When you ride the east side subways or anywhere in midtown you see a bigger variety and more economically flush set of people.

Originally Posted by Mari

Tritone,
When I was a kid I used to visit NYC with my mom and whatever other kids / cousins she could drag along. (We had relatives on Long Island we visited once a year or so.) We would often take the subway. She was totally creeped out by the subway and would warn us about not doing this or remembering to do that.

The last time I was there (late 1990s around Christmas time), my sis and I took my now hubby into the city since he had never been there. We took the Long Island commuter train to the city and got ourselves to Battery Park / Statue of Liberty (via subway? --can't remember). Then we took the subway up to the Empire State Building because he loves the old King Kong movie. After that we walked to Penn Station to go back to Long Island.

At one point in the subway, my sister had a melt down and completely lost her sense of direction. I had to grab her and hubby and tell them which train we were getting on.
It was weird because I had last been there 15 years earlier and was not sure where to go either.
Hubby loved the trip but felt like he was in a foreign county.

Later sis and I had a big huge drag out screaming match in the middle of Penn Station (?) during rush hour.

I remember being aware of thousands of people rushing past us and no one noticing us because it was NYC and rush hour.

So I have been in the subway -- not as a regular rider, but I can say I was there. We weren't concerned much about the folks in the cars with us.
We were focusing on which stop, which train next . . .

M.

[waves]

I admire what you did on the subway. Thank you for sharing that story.

I too learned something about judgement in therapy, in recent months. In my case, i was judging myself.

It is one thing to have experiences or do things one regrets or for which one might even feel acute remorse. But it is another to pass eternal judgement on oneself, to consider oneself of inferior moral fiber for it.

It lightened me so much as i began to see my own self-judgement, to question my right to it, to see how that differed from feelings of remorse, or appreciating the ugliness of the past as a finite thing, and not part of my "soul."

Assessment of facts and feelings is one thing. It is useful.

Judgement of a person is a decision about their moral fiber, sometimes ourselves, and it is indeed a dire thing. Not useful.

....... on the ways and manners of public transit systems .......

I have never defended the weak (not had occasion to) in the way that you did... but i wanted to share some of my own social experiences on public transit systems... which i have "policed" from time to time... always on impulse too, usually out of anger, too. Getting ppl to put out cigarettes, reprimanding teens for writing on seats (i'm not too proud of this one... i was hypomanic and yelled scaring the cr@p out of the two indicted teenagers. They called me on it too, and I luckily was not so bonko as to go off the deep end totally. I agreed that my manner had been inappropriate and rude due to an angry impulse, and i flat out apologized for scaring them. Then i proceeded to reaffirm what i was saying, at which point they engaged and i was asked to explain .... get this... why it was so bad to write on public transits (go figure, families don't teach their kids about respect for public property any more). well, so... i explained that it was unfair to others since it was everyone's property, and that if wanting to scribble, it would be appropriate to do so on something of their own, such as a handbag or their own clothes (LOL, can you imagine that?). I have also reprimanded teens for throwing litter out of windows, suggesting the appropriate behavior - to keep it until destination and throw in the garbage, calling on them to be mindful of the cleanliness of OUR country and OUR world.

Amazingly, i too received huge support from the surrounding travelers. In one case it was, while supportive of me, decidedly negative... bunch of older women started moaning about how "kids these days" ... well, if they would open their mouths a bit more often, and talk TO the kids nicely, instead of ABOUT the kids derogatorily (talk about judgement!), geez, we might have fewer problems! sheesh. That actually made me angry... insofar as these ppl see this behavior every day, could someone not open their mouth, as i did... can we not "train" our teenagers in public since the families are neglecting this aspect? SIGH.

In the other case I had others speak up with me in good tones about the defacement of public transits... giving positive examples of other countries they had lived in where such defacement was literally not present creating a much more pleasant travel ambience.

With the smoking i have never received input... but it is illicit... there are also a lot of teens which are emm, drugged and it is not always a sane thing to challenge them.

But regardless, it's amazing how nobody wants to open their mouth FIRST, isn't it. Yet they ALLL notice whatever is wrong and sit there in silent resignation... perhaps even passing judgement...

Anyway, truly well done Tritone You shared a personal insight through action, essentially, by standing up for the pan-handler. Besides that, taking on someone who is behaving aggressively and irascibly takes a lot of guts. I think you made the day for just about everyone on that car.

~ waves ~

[tritone]

Thanks Waves...

This is a tough one... No doubt. We judge ourselves unfairly. Yep.

I'm sure it could be so - that many of these public events are projections of our inner conflicts.

One of the other passenger's sentiments was, "it can happen to anybody..." so I guess that is a very strong theme with me. I've seen myself wind up in places. I've seen people I know wind up in places they didn't deserve to be, didn't plan to be...

I see the smoking on the train. I see the littering. That bothers me too. I've been known to say, "Hi, the trash bin is over there..." - but not really get animated about it.

I've been called all kinds of names from faggot to white mother ####er... Pushed, shoved...

The amount of stuff you learn to let go of on a daily basis can be staggering when you live in a city like NY.

This occasion was different.

Originally Posted by waves

It lightened me so much as i began to see my own self-judgement, to question my right to it, to see how that differed from feelings of remorse, or appreciating the ugliness of the past as a finite thing, and not part of my "soul."