Last night was Barack Obama’s historic speech to the nation. And on Elysia’s ride home yesterday she was told “Why don’t you go back to your country?”
That would be New York City.
She was entering the Pentagon’s Metro station at the same time as an African-American woman and her daughter, who was about 8 years old. The woman was smoking and Elysia asked her to put out her cigarette as they descended the escalator. This prompted an angry barrage, probably because she had been called out and knew she was in the wrong.
Since the woman kept smoking in the station, Elysia asked a Metro officer for assistance. He said he would look into it in a minute but clearly did not. In Washington DC you get occasional news stories about Metro police handcuffing children caught eating in the stations but the one time I complained about someone smoking on the platform I was told to go tell someone else.
The woman wound up on the same train where she continued her tirade.
We wonder if it would have made any difference if Elysia was still in uniform. She says that often the uniform is an equalizer that trumps other identities. On the other hand, maybe it would have been the same.
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I love ad hominem attacks. They’re exactly like shouting, “I have no rational response.”