Me vs. Guy On Bus

So on the bus into town today I was sitting up the top about halfway back as I usually do, and in the back seat (trouble zone) were a pair of drunken folk, a man and a woman, who as the journey went on got ridiculously loud. Since they were mostly bellowing christmas carols I wasn’t too fussed.
Then the guy got up and leaned in: “got a light?”
“Sorry mate” I said, thinking, no-one will give you a light because the bus is a no-smoking zone. *sigh*
“Don’t be sorry, be happy,” he said.
He went through every person up top – about ten other people. The guy right at the front, he said “Don’t be sorry, go back to your own country.”
My brain eventually realised what he’d said. By this time he was in the back seat calling out that he hoped the guy wasn’t a terrorist and didn’t have a bomb.
So I leaned around in my seat and said “knock it off”.
This meant I suddenly had a rather dangerous-looking drunken guy with a woman to show off in front of inches from my face. I don’t remember what he said back, because my brain still hadn’t really caught up, but he was challenging me.
So I said “We don’t want any racism on the bus, mate,” which may not have made much sense in the big picture [“off the bus you can go for your life!”] but got the message across.
So I had some shouting at me and glaring at me and a very deliberately slow spit on the floor of the bus, which apparently I was meant to be upset by, and some rather threatening insinuations that my nose was about to be put out of joint, all delivered from a distance of about six inches.
(He told me to go back to my own country, too, which I was secretly pleased by.)
Anyway, I was completely at a loss. I just kind of sat there and blanked him, and I didn’t get injured so I guess it worked out okay. But when I got off the bus two stops later leaving him, his girlfriend, the guy he was harassing and all the other folk behind I wondered if I’d actually achieved anything.
I was pleased with myself for having the presence of mind to say something. I still feel like it was a bit of a random mess and I didn’t handle myself particularly well. But, oh well.
So that’s what I’ve been turning over and over in my head for the last few hours. Except for when we watched Garden State, which is cool fun and generally nice, and for when I watched the first five minutes of Jaws 3 on Sky, and hey! We’re going to London tomorrow!
They’re advertising Without A Paddle on TV now. I stare at the ad and look for things I recognise because it was shot in My Home Town. Um… Seth Green mugging… Matt Lillard mugging… eek.
Anyway. I posted a story about Christmas on my livejournal. Go read.

6 thoughts on “Me vs. Guy On Bus”

  2. Every action to assert the world we want to exist has value.
    It can be tricky with drunk aggro types. From experience they’re not quite on your radar when you’re dealing with them.

  3. Good for you Morgue. So many people would have sat there and pretended nothing was happening. Not sure I’d have had the cojones to stand up to an aggressive drunk. And I’m sure your actions meant something to the guy you were defending.

  4. That famous quote (which I will get wrong, as I can’t remembr if word-for-word) that ‘all it takes for evil to win is for good people to do nothing.’
    You did something. It takes guts. Lots of people wouldn’t have done anything. The guy you were defending will have loved you for it.
    At Staff Conference the other week, in the Equal Opps group we were talking about exactly that. It is not about the big gestures, the policies, the diversity events. It is about individuals doing exactly what you did on the bus: saying you are not going to allow racism on your watch.
    Well done. Have a fabby time in London. See you in January!

  5. I agree. Well done Morgue.
    It is never easy to stand up for what we believe in. I mean it’s dead easy to rant about it in our blogs, in cafes over coffe and cake with friends, at parties etc. But this isn’t standing up for what we beleive in. This is simply being opinionated and sharing those opinions in a fsafe place.
    Really truely standing up for what we beleive in means doing it in the face of adversity. Standing up for our beleifs when there is the possibility of personal cost (physical, material, emotional, spiritual negative consequences).
    Then you stop being an opinionated fool into someone who will inspire others. We can talk all we want about the shit in this world, but, as T said, unless the action happens at a personal level nothing will change.
    And you know what. I bet the guy who he told to go back to his own country saw it and appreciated it. Until you did something, in his eyes, everyone on the bus was silently agreeing with the racism. You stood up for him when you didn’t have too. You stepped out into the line of fire to help a stranger. I don’t care how botched you think it might have been (and I’d say this if the guy had beaten the crap out of you as well), you made a positive stand for what is right, good and decent.
    More power to you bro. Don’t let second thoughts and doubts stop your from doing it again someday. Appreciate it for what it was. An act of love in a dark and dangeorous world.

  6. Argh!!!
    I hate confrontation (when I’m involved) and always mull over the situation in me head for days afterward. It would be nice to think that I could have been as cool as you in the same situation but I doubt I would have been.
    As for the mulling it over thing, which is often the worst thing – it helps when you have done the right thing, but it also might help to think what it would have looked like on the big screen and not from your perspective. From our own perspectives we can feel like there was something we missed or did wrong, but from the outside you would have looked like the strong guy who stood up for something he believed. That’s cool, no matter how uncool it may have felt at the time.
    (It may have felt right for you but I know it would have felt wrong and very scary for me)

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