Generation Sheeple

This letter to the editor enrages me.

One of them stared at the young black man and in a threatening manner asked what he had said about him - even though the white male knew for a fact that the black male had said nothing and was just enjoying a conversation with his friend.

Then came the first punch - right at the black man's face.

Next, he was whisked up off of his seat. The look that the innocent victim had on his face, I will never forget - it was a mix of helplessness and despair.

More punches were thrown from the white male, hard enough that blood had spattered on the floor and around us, the bystanders who could do nothing. My grandma sitting next to me had a speck of blood on her face and on her suit. She was numb, not able to move.

I looked to my right and then to my left; the SkyTrain was filled with white, brown and yellow people, their eyes had a dazed look of bewilderment. Nobody could do anything -- it was obvious that most of the people wanted to save this poor victim; however, every one of us was in a paralyzed shock.

The black man tried to defend himself but to no avail. The assault continued outside the SkyTrain. Then I heard the white male say, "I'm going to stab you."

With that, the black man fled as fast as he could down the stairs and out of the station.

He literally ran for his life, all of our heads just followed him until he was out of our sight.

Meanwhile, the four white males were laughing and had the phone that belonged to the innocent victim in their hands. All that was left for the rest of us to see was the hat, sunglasses, and blood on the floor at our feet.

This is the result of teaching children that violence never solves anything, and equally punishing all children involved in conflict: an entire train car full of people so docile that they can't bring themselves to take action when confronted by someone who is comfortable using violence. The only time these people could bring themselves to fight would be if they were personally being attacked, but they would be so lousy at it that it wouldn't matter anyway.

This sad state of affairs is very similar to how gun ownership is stigmatized to an extent that most of the people you might want to be armed won't be for fear of the disapproval of society.

Given the lack of media coverage on this assault I have to assume that no one (including the victim?) could even bring themselves to press the panic strip in the SkyTrain, or make a police report. At least the author of the letter felt moved enough to try to raise some awareness, but that was in response to her own daughter being traumatized by seeing how little help you will receive if singled out for attack.

The level of reported violence on Vancouver's public transit significantly understates the problem. There are terrible things going on all the time on transit that don't result in violence only because the "good" people are willing to take almost any amount of abuse. Heaven help you if you are so bold as to ask someone to turn down their loud music or request one of the five seats some gang banger is slouched across.

I feel like I have seen an extraordinarily large number of bad things given how little I take transit:

• A guy pushing a stroller blocking the SkyTrain door try to pick fights with people for perceived slights against him.
• A guy who turned his gangsta rap up to 11 threaten someone who looked at him in response.
• A group of thugs miming pushing a particularly spaced out woman onto the Skytrain tracks. That one was really stressful for me - do I intervene before anything happens and almost certainly end up facing down 3 guys in a mostly deserted station or wait till they actually push her and then go charging in? (I chose to bide my time, and luckily all ended well.)
  
• A bunch of wannabe gangsters generally menacing everyone on the train, smoking, and prying open the doors to throw stuff out of the train.
• etc, etc.
  

In fact, it is probably my small number of SkyTrain trips that really reminded my how fragile society is, and got me working out to ensure I have more options when dealing with situations like those above.