Today on June 20, 2008 I was riding on the L inbound. I'm not sure what block I was on, I think it was Sunset and Taraval. Often, there are Asian immigrants on the L with large garbage bags full of plastic and/or glass bottles which they reclaim to get a few cents. I think we all know the people I'm talking about, we're starting to see them more and more all over the streets- they're doing the best they can to skim a living off people's garbage- basically they're living on the fringes of society. Today on the L, a woman's voice came on really loudly on the loudspeaker announcing, "There are no large bags on MUNI. There are no large bags allowed on MUNI." The sound was a lot louder than announcements normally are- usually the announcements are nothing more than muffled static through which one can normally only detect the cross street and nothing more. To me, is seemed like racism, because I see people with hella shit on the buses all the time. Moreover, I don't really think that "those of us who are well adjusted to this society's complicated life" should try and make life more difficult than it already has to be for those of us who happen to be in a different situation.
Shortly after, a clean looking Asian woman wearing a white shirt, accompanied by a huge bag of plastic watter bottles, got off the bus at the bus stop with her daughter, and started to wait for the next train. I wonder if she felt embarrassed?
No comments:
Post a Comment