Soon after the London subway bombings, both TTC officials and local politicians urged alarmed riders to just be “vigilant” and to pay more attention to “suspicious activity.”
I have been riding the TTC since first year. Now familiar with the bizarre world of public transportation, I have become desensitized to odd smells, strange sounds, and peculiar people. Or so I thought.
I entered the subway and immediately detected a slim Middle-Eastern man with dark skin, piercing black eyes, and a heavy beard wearing traditional Muslim clothes: a Kufi (Muslim hat), and a starched Galabiyya under a heavy black coat. He seemed hypnotized, listening to his walkman, slowly bobbing back and forth while clutching with both hands a black leather bag.
I immediately felt two things: nervous and uncomfortable. Nervous because he presents an image of the so-called high-risk disposition-he is Middle-Eastern, male, and Muslim. He clutched a leather bag that, according to the image, could be carrying a bomb, and his eyes looked so focused that I wondered when the voice from his headphones would instruct him to reach in and detonate. I was uncomfortable because I felt that I shouldn’t be nervous, despite knowing that a terrorist attack on Canada would be possible or even likely: bin Laden always mentions us, we do have troops in Afghanistan, an attack on us could harm the U.S., and our subway security seems very porous.
Yet, I still judged my thoughts to be discriminatory. I was convicting someone based merely on appearance, and thus being vigilant. In all likelihood, this man was a law-abiding and productive Canadian. On the other hand, wasn’t I supposed to report suspicious activity?
Assuming I hadn’t been “stuck” with ethical concerns, what in fact could I have done? Should I have walked out at the next station and left the rest of the riders in this potentially disastrous situation? And if I did, who would I tell?
Definitely not the TTC coin-collectors, as I’d not only have to shout (to the panic of eavesdroppers) my worries through the tiny microphone, but their general unfriendliness makes me doubt whether they’d even listen.
I could not imagine speaking to the man, as he would surely take offence at me, and rightly so. It is wrong to single someone out based on appearance, even though nowadays it seems to be considered a legitimate measure for preventing terrorism.
I could not push the yellow emergency tab, since if I was wrong, I would be heavily fined, and caused hundreds of people a delay simply to alleviate my own paranoia.
Most importantly, it could be, by that time, just too late.
In the end, I did not speak to the man, notify TTC personnel, or flee at the nearest station. I did everything as usual, and succeeded in controlling my nerves. My reasoning at the time was this: I didn’t want to approach the TTC because I didn’t think they would take me seriously, and if they did, I was worried that I would be reproached for discrimination. Or, if my worries had been validated, I couldn’t imagine what the TTC “special constables” could do to a harmless person listening to his walkman. I didn’t leave because if I had left, and something horrible would have happened on that train, I would have felt like a coward.
Aside from all the psychology about schemas, and their evolutionary advantage, I think we’ve all generally been conditioned since 9/11 to discriminate against certain groups of people, particularly Middle-Eastern males. Interestingly, I myself am a large, Middle-Eastern male who owns a black bag and black coat, and I do not doubt that I am, at least sometimes, feared, despite having no intentions to harm anyone.
Since that time, I have come to learn that in such a situation, I am completely impotent, because despite all the many warnings about vigilance, I am unwilling, at least explicitly, to discriminate against someone based on how they look. Maybe it’s just best sometimes to write about things.
