Public Transport

by D. Benning, ©2018

 Roy walked along in typical fashion: eyes averted yet noticing as much as possible. He knew his place; he understood his position: not pariah, but not elite. His kind was looked down upon but tolerated to some extent as long as the boat was not rocked.

He sat down in the back of the public transport, making sure no eye contact was made with any others in the car around him. However, as they started, he did notice through peripheral vision six other people sat in the car with him: an older woman, two nondescript men, a lone person of indeterminate gender, an olive skinned man, and a woman of darker skin.

Suddenly he hated himself for noticing skin color and supposing genders of others. He couldn't help it though, he thought. That's just the way that ignorant, cis-gendered, white males always looked at things. He shook his head quietly to himself then stared at the floor.

The car stopped and the doors opened to the outside. The older women left first—he noticed that immediately. The two nondescript men followed her. Again he berated himself for assuming gender and preferred pronouns.

Now only the brown-skinned man and the dark-skinned woman were with him in the car. He didn't know how to categorize them; initial perceptions were often faulty. An acquaintance had incorrectly classified someone with the wrong designation and was quickly slapped with a debilitatingly stiff fine. Roy would thus never voice any assumptions.

The transport lurched forward and they began their tired journey again. For the third time that day he reflected how much he hated his name. "Roy!" It reeked of European ethnocentrism and elitism. The name itself meant "king" and such hubris lay at the root of his illicit privileges! He thought of petitioning the courts to change his name but hadn't settled on a new name yet. It would have to be soft and neutral in an unassuming fashion.

Roy sat quietly for several long moments, absently staring at the stark street lamps passing by outside their car. Finally he became aware of the others' terse conversation. It was not as though he had purposely tried to listen in on their words, but they spoke in a language that he had studied in school—back before studying other languages was finally deemed demeaning cultural appropriation. He didn't completely understand how it was demeaning, yet he appreciated that it was an appropriation to try to use something from another culture that was not his—especially his being from such an historically advantaged group.

Nevertheless, the words came through to him in spite of the horribly inappropriate insensitivity of using a culture not his own. The woman repeatedly rebuffed the man who kept coming on rather forcefully.

Roy closed his eyes, reviewing the latest sensitivity training that he attended:

"Remember, you must never assume someone's gender," the non-cis-embodied, inclusively-woman reminded those in attendance. "Let them inform you how they identify. If you find that you have initially assumed that someone is female, try, instead, imagining that person as male or non-binary gendered."

Roy did then try to imagine that it was a woman with a deep, gruff voice being the aggressor. That almost brought a smile before he checked it. He knew better than to let emotion or any visual hint about his thoughts escape. A college classmate, just as white male cis-gendered and privileged as he, had let his thoughts run too free once. They took him to a training facility to help him identify reality correctly, in terms of how others saw themselves—not in cis-gendered white oppressive terms that disparaged and restricted opportunity, potentiality, and growth. Roy saw him almost a year later: stoic, lifeless, soulless—a stark reminder to play the game the way they want you to play it.

The transport slowed and he stood up to leave, facing the door as he waited for the vehicle to stop. It was the polite thing to do—yet he still heard her whisper sharply in her own language: "Please help me!"

He almost turned to look, but that would have been impolite, inviting questions of how he knew. He didn't need to know; knowing only brought problems. He did the one safe thing left for him: Before the vehicle completely stopped, he pushed the door open and left, walking underneath a darkened street light, never looking behind.