How does that story go?
Some woman was attacked back in the 1960’s. It was night. Summer probably. She screamed from the streets and many people heard the commotion and looked out their windows.
And they didn’t do anything. They watched her get killed.
When questioned, everyone said they assumed someone else would do something. It prompted a study that’s fuzzy in my brain now, but I remember the story behind it.
The MTA slogan as long as I’ve lived in NYC has been “If you see something, say something.” If someone’s doing something shady on the subway, you should not turn up your iPod. You should at least say, “What the?”
I left work late tonight and found my brain too muddy to read on the way uptown. A few stops later, I heard a scuffle to the left and turned. A man and woman were shoving each other and yelling. I only heard Jay-Z rapping from my headphones. Something about how he’ll be hood forever.
So I took my headphone out of my ears. Some men raced to their feet to break up the fight. The man and woman were cursing and didn’t want to let go. But they finally did.
She sat far from where he stood, calling him a pussy.
He chased after her and said, “Don’t make me punch you in your head.”
Some other guy said, “Don’t even.”
The woman kept trash talking and another woman scolded, “Shut your mouth! Now!”
Then the man sat down, and someone grumbled, “Merry Christmas, everybody.”
I put my headphones back in, as did the brawlers. We went home.
Now I don’t love a fight, but I do enjoy when New Yorkers band together to keep the peace. Helping elderly people cross the street. Bitching at litterers. Laying the collective smack down when someone tries to cut in line at a book signing.
I distinctly remember the first time I did it - a couple was fighting in the street with a stroller between them. It looked like the man would choke the woman any second. She wailed and reached for the baby. He pulled the stroller from her.
And I stood there and watched everything. I was ready to step in.
The guy ended up walking away angrily, so nothing happened. But I was ready.
I’m not sure why I felt so strongly about hanging around. Maybe it was from all that practice breaking up fights at I.S. 666? Maybe it was the sisterhood?
Over the summer, I found myself in a situation like that.
The person I was dating then was screaming at me, horrible things I remember and don’t want to. We’d been arguing as we walked back to my apartment, but things escalated to an unfamiliar level.
At one point, I was pushed hard against the metal railing of my apartment stoop. Hard enough to bruise.
I looked around and didn’t see anyone.
“I wish someone saw that,” I hissed. “I wish some stranger on the street would kick your ass right now!” (He’s twice my size, so I wasn’t exactly the girl for the job).
He thought it was a weird thing to say, but I still don’t.
Despite the fact that no one said anything when they saw three teenage boys on bikes slap my ass, I have faith that someone in my neighborhood would do something if they saw me get shoved. Especially by a man.
(Though a girlfight would probably be egged on - don’t even get me started on that).
I can’t live in NYC thinking that no one would stop and help me if I really needed it.
I’m not sure if there’s a moral to this story.
How about this: If you see something, say something. Better yet, do something.
There’s a lot of terrible stuff that we’re not privy to, stuff inside the “privacy” of locked apartments.
But when you see something wrong happen on the train or the sidewalk, it’s your problem, too. Someone should do something about it, even if it’s just yelling or getting help.
We’re a city of strangers. We surround each other.
Wherever you go, it stands to reason that someone’s got your back, your front, your side.
And you should do the same.
When I lived in Harlem I broke up a pack of kids who were beating on one other kid with an umbrella. I saw events not quite like this, but pick up fight were frequent and often supervised by adults. What made this event unique was that the victim of this group assault called out for help. Fights were frequent calls for aid were not. I calmly walked up to the group and told them to cut it out and that was enough. I pushed my way into the crowd to get between them and the boy. At this point other adults were also coming to break this up. I nor the other adults who stepped in after I did, did not chastise the pack of kids or even have harsh words for them. We just told them enough and escorted the one boy away from the pact of boys. As I walked with the boy in front of me an old man who slowly tailed us just kept telling the boy to just go home and forget about this, just go home. Later when I was walking my sister’s dog I saw the umbrella stashed behind a bush and I never saw that boy again.
But that is one case were I did step in I can list a few other instances where I did not. What I think made this instance unique was the fact that I could not help but feel that the call for help was directed towards me, and as such could not be ignored.
To quote someone we know and tolerate, “Kid, this is why you need to be carrying a blade.”
When I was at art school in Philadelphia, many suite-mates watched from small windows out of their suite’s main entrance as myself and my roommate were beat up by EIGHT guys. No one did anything until I was pushed down a flight of steps and repeatedly kicked in the face until I was unconscious and finally left alone. It was only after the threat of them not being “involved” that they dragged me into their suite. MY roommate was taken DOWN AN ELEVATOR, eleven floors, right in front of a security guard WHO WAS SLEEPING, and choked outside in the park across from our dorms. We both had to leave school. I was lucky and only had a broken nose and shattered cheekbone. She ended up losing sight in one eye. [I could go into more detail about the cause of this instance, which the newspapers deemed as a “random act of violence” but I think I’ve already typed enough about it.
I cheered when I read this but at the same time, I can sort of understand people not wanting to get killed by stepping in. I know had anyone tried to help us sooner and gotten severely injured, I would be upset about it every day of my life.
Sherri, oh my God. First of all, I am so sorry that happened to you and that no one did anything. I felt sick reading this, but I’m glad you shared the experience. Jesus!
I do understand not wanting to get killed and not wanting to drag others into something dangerous, but I think someone can almost always do something - make noise, call police, watch and report it asap.