The City of New York is known for its diversity by socio-economic status, age and of course race. One can find a myriad of different dialects, accents and languages during the duration of a single subway ride. Much of the city’s recent population boom and increase in mixed neighborhood demographics can be attributed to the Bloomberg administration’s rezoning policy that has spurred housing development in low income minority neighborhoods. This mixture of people now contributes to unique encounters between different races, particularly Black and White, in public spaces including public transit. As a daily workday commuter, conscious of the racial climate throughout the country and the cultural changes in New York, I constantly ask myself “are people of color, particularly African Americans, treated differently when it comes to comfort and courtesy on the city's buses and trains?” Let us take a look to see how mainstream stereotypes affect the way African Americans are perceived on the city's mass transit system and how greater cultural acceptance can be achieved for all cultures within NYC’s public transit system.

During my workday commute on the E train in Queens, I frequently ponder how other African-American commuters are perceived by White commuters. I also wonder if other African-Americans are as race-conscious as I am on the City’s bus and trains. For example, am I perceived to be a robber or thug depending on my clothes because I fit a depiction created and perpetuated by corporate news media? African Americans are constantly prejudged in various places including school and work, as the hit HBO TV series Insecure portrays, but often too, we are branded by strangers in public settings. This may suggest underlying micro-aggressions leading to feelings of insecurity, inferiority and inadequacy. In the article, Racial Micro-aggressions in Everyday Life, the writers, Derald Wing Sue, Cristina M. Capodilupo, et al., explain that racial micro-aggressions are “subtle, stunning, often automatic, non-verbal, exchanges which are ‘put downs.’ The article continues to explain racial micro-aggressions as “subtle insults, verbal/non-verbal, and/or visual directed toward people of color, often automatically or unconsciously.” Therefore, the snubs, tightly clutched handbags, dismissive looks, shifty eyes, and gestures are usually dismissed as normal behavior by White commuters, but can be harmful to the victims which are usually people of color.

Upon observation, depending on circumstances, it seems as though some African Americans may constantly try to uphold their existence as a person of color in the presence of White commuters while others may engage in feelings of inferiority to compromise their comfort for that of white commuters.  

The Perception of Crime and its Effects on Black Commuters

In my opinion, there is no doubt that the media's perception of young black individuals plays a role in the generalization of young African Americans on public transportation. The deaths of Tamir Rice (12) and Michael Brown (18) are examples of how police officers react in fear when encountering African American children.  The American media portrays little boys and girls of color as hyper aggressive.  This perception perpetuates the idea that African-American boys and girls are more violent and more mature for their age than their white counterparts. The critically acclaimed Netflix documentary "13th" directed by Ava DuVernay does a brilliant job explaining the chronological events of how African-Americans, particularly black men were perceived as ultra-sexual, aggressive and dangerous from the antebellum years to contemporary time.

The greatest example of this is the story of Emmitt Till, a 14 year old African-American boy, murdered in 1955 in Mississippi after allegedly whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a White woman, although decades later Carolyn confessed that her testimony was fabricated.  We all hear about people of color followed by store clerks and law enforcement, and many stories of women clutching their handbags when around African Americans on city trains and buses.  If this is due to crime rates in African-American communities it does not give one the right to generalize and prejudge a person based on statistics about an entire race. Unfortunately, this generalization comes with consequences on public transit systems where a white person may have a racial preference when choosing to sit next to African Americans or in extreme cases White commuters’ faces filled with disgust for sitting in proximity to some African American commuters, or in extreme cases.