Strange Realization
Today on my metro commute home, I was switching to the yellow line at Gallery Place as I usually do. I saw that a Yellow train was coming in one minute. I remember there was a green train on the board before it, but with no arrival time, so I shrugged it off as a probable no passenger train. I was pretty engrossed in my book, and without really thinking about it, I got on the next train that arrived.
After a few stops, we were in a tunnel and I looked up and around me. I noticed two things:
1) The train was much more empty than it usually is.
2) I was the only white person on it.
And that alone was enough to know I was on the Green line.
It was an odd moment for me to identify going in the wrong direction not by geography at all, but by ethnicity. Sure enough, the next stop, where I got off to correct my mistake, was Congress Heights, about 4 stops past where I should have been. As soon as the train came back into the district near Nats Stadium and Navy Yard, the ethnic make up began to diversify the closer we got to downtown.
As I walked home through my neighborhood and the mixed income housing developments that line my street, the $800,000 townhomes and the Section 8 row houses that exist side by side, I thought about the people who make up my neighborhood and I hope I get to meet more of them. DC is a divided city. There is still tension, socio-economically, racially, spiritually, politically; it exists at all levels. Getting on the wrong train today was a good reminder of that, and a spur to think about ways to bridge gaps or at least to be ready for opportunities for understanding better why that divide exists and what my role in it is.
After a few stops, we were in a tunnel and I looked up and around me. I noticed two things:
1) The train was much more empty than it usually is.
2) I was the only white person on it.
And that alone was enough to know I was on the Green line.
It was an odd moment for me to identify going in the wrong direction not by geography at all, but by ethnicity. Sure enough, the next stop, where I got off to correct my mistake, was Congress Heights, about 4 stops past where I should have been. As soon as the train came back into the district near Nats Stadium and Navy Yard, the ethnic make up began to diversify the closer we got to downtown.
As I walked home through my neighborhood and the mixed income housing developments that line my street, the $800,000 townhomes and the Section 8 row houses that exist side by side, I thought about the people who make up my neighborhood and I hope I get to meet more of them. DC is a divided city. There is still tension, socio-economically, racially, spiritually, politically; it exists at all levels. Getting on the wrong train today was a good reminder of that, and a spur to think about ways to bridge gaps or at least to be ready for opportunities for understanding better why that divide exists and what my role in it is.
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