One day this past week, I walked down the Mt. Vernon Square Metro escalator, heading home from work, just like I do every day.
“Excuse me!” Someone yelled, maybe 25 feet or so away from me. I’m not interested. I had a train to catch and if I gave my undivided attention to everyone asking for money outside Metro, I’d never get anywhere. It’s a very common thing.
“Fucking white people,” the guy said in my direction when it was clear I wasn’t going to answer him.
Without thought, I looked up and cursed at him. It was instinctive, though it’s possible any insult thrown in my direction would’ve drawn a response from me. Maybe, on a different day, I would’ve ignored it and kept walking, or I wouldn’t have heard him if I had my headphones on. But not that day. That just happened.
Also, hearing the racial element of this told me immediately that this was a special kind of ignorant person, one who isn’t ‘enlightened’ by the P.C. police and their warnings about everything from racism to microaggressions (then again, I’m not sure if the P.C. police believe what this guy said is really a serious problem).
Things got worse. He came after me.
“Don’t do it!” Someone else yelled, perhaps a friend of his who was standing nearby.
The aggressor was a young African-American male, maybe 17 or 18, no qualms about openly insulting strangers or antagonizing them.
“Swing, bitch!” he yelled more than once, anger and hatred in his voice.
I backed away as he pursued, adrenaline pumping, my fists clenched, plenty prepared for a physical confrontation.
“SWING, BITCH!”
He was goading me into a fight while leaving himself open – both his chest and his face – and I knew I could get in multiple blows before he could effectively counter, if he could. He was pursuing me and first punch or not, I know this would be self defense.
And I was ready to swing… ready to kick, in fact. He was giving me exactly what I needed to destroy him with no more than a snap kick to the jaw and a hard right to his cheek.
That split second when it almost happened, I saw the entryway in the corner of my left eye, and three Metro employees sitting there watching, clearly wishing they had brought popcorn for this show.
I yelled to them before a change in direction by the aggressor allowed me to drop my guard, then swipe my card. He walked away, still shouting at me.
So many thoughts in such a short period of time. Had I gotten one punch in, one shot he was daring me to take, I know it would’ve been a mess for him. But what kind of mess would it have been for me?
It’s not like this hasn’t happened before. I’ve been sucker-punched at a Metro stop by another young punk over space issues (I punched him back and it ended there). Nothing more happened then, so why should this time be different? We fight, then go home.
Maybe he, or his friend, had a gun or a knife and would’ve come after me had I gotten that first punch in.
Maybe I would’ve broken his jaw and puffed out his eye, and those lazy Metro officials would’ve actually called security and I’d end up at a police station. Maybe his parents would press charges against me for assaulting a minor, and I’d have to put up with that headache.
Maybe the entire encounter would’ve been recorded and it would become a viral video shown in the context of an evil white guy beating up a young African American ‘victim.’ America would be divided over who was at fault. I’d get plenty of pats on the back from the righties while lefties would make this a black vs. white thing, and I’d be told how I used disproportionate force.
Maybe I would’ve kicked him so hard that he stumbled back far enough for me to swipe into the station and get out of there, and that would’ve been the end of it.
Maybe this entire incident helped him get some street cred, as he knew I wouldn’t swing first so he had nothing to lose in front of his friend, but show how tough he really was.
Maybe if it wasn’t me, it would’ve been someone else, and that scenario would’ve played out much worse. Maybe he would’ve become another Michael Brown, doing everything wrong, yet made out to be a victim and a symbol of greater injustices.
While I’m ultimately glad I was able to get out of that situation without hurting him or being hurt, I can’t help but think this guy learned nothing. Perhaps a broken face would’ve knocked some sense into him, or at least made him more hesitant to pursue strangers after openly insulting them. Perhaps no violence here just keeps the door open for something worse. While this isn’t my problem, I know this guy still needs and deserves a beating before he causes harm to someone else.
I can’t say for certain what good lesson I learned from this. Don’t talk back to idiots? Perhaps, though it’s tough to abide by codes like that in the heat of the moment. The incident will only make me more protective of myself. It’ll only make me more skeptical of punks – no matter what skin color or mannerisms – who don’t shy away from confrontation. It’ll also make me read with even more skepticism these articles about class and privilege, which argues for the ‘oppressed’ to be let off the hook for just about everything.
I tweeted out what happened. I know several folks read it, but I got almost no replies and no one checked in with me for further clarification, or to see if I was even okay.
I can’t help but think if the races were reversed and a white punk was yelling slurs toward African Americans, then screaming ‘Swing, bitch!’ while pursuing them, my Twitter colleagues would react as if it were a real problem. I hate the double standard, but that’s the hypocritical world we live in.
At the end of the day, I can only protect myself, and I will.