What’s Your Name, Son?

This wasn't going to be a long bus ride. 14 hours tops and only one transfer in Houston. The whole time I was hoping to get a seat to myself, but that never happens when you want it to.

When I got on the bus, I sat down next to this petite white woman with blond hair who was huddled up in the back corner of the bus. The guy in front of us was a young black man. I only bring their races up because it plays in with the rest of story.

After we had been riding for about 5 hours, we pulled into Baton Rouge around 7 at night. I can never stand to stay on the bus when given a chance to leave, so I went inside the small station to fill up my water bottle and got back on the bus and had a seat. I had the aisle seat (the most uncomfortable seat for me), so I was struggling to find a comfortable position that would get me through the next 3 hours until we got to Houston. Well, right as we were taking off, the woman next just flipped out. She buried her head in her pillow and yelled really loud "I AM SO UNCOMFORTABLE!"

I was a little embarrassed. I figured that she could have at least said something to me instead of yelling about her discomfort to the rest of the bus. I tried to move over a little, but those seats are only so big.

After a minute I closed my eyes to try and get some sleep, but then she kicked the seat in front of her. "I am SO uncomfortable. Could you PLEASE MOVE YOUR SEAT UP?!" she said in a very irritated voice. I felt a little better because now I knew I wasn't the object of her derision.

Either way, she still kept it up. The guy in front of her seemed more irritated that she was yelling at him and causing a scene than that she was kicking his seat.

"I AM SO UNCOMFORTABLE! COULD YOU PLEASE MOVE YOUR SEAT UP!!!"

He finally looked back and told her that he was uncomfortable too. And that the entire bus was uncomfortable. And that if he moved his seat up, he would be even more uncomfortable than he already was and that she would just have to deal with it.

I felt he could have bent a little, but she just went nuts and started screaming into her pillow even louder and more fanatically. Now everyone was looking back at her, all the while I'm trying to move further over to the aisle to distance myself from her.

She shifted in her chair some, and then let out a growl, stood up in her seat and, to my amazement and disbelief, punched the guy in the back of the head.

I was in total shock. You can't just hit someone on the head because they won't move their seat up. On countless bus rides I have certainly wished death and horrible violence upon several people that sat in front of me on the Greyhound. But you don't ACT on it.

The guy looked back quick, got up and drew his fist back, and just swung in the air and threw himself down on his cushion, pushing his seat further back. She kicked back and this went on for a few minutes as she continued to scream into her pillow. Then she took the pillow away from her face to put her foot in her mouth.

"I'm going to say it! I'M GOING TO SAY IT!"

The bus was silent except for her.

"NIGGER!"

Once again, I was in total shock.

I jerked my head and gave her a stern, disapproving look, but said nothing. The guy in front did the same. I shook my head at her and the guy in front said, "That's cool. I'll just get your ass kicked off the bus at the next stop."

I wanted to say something, but couldn't think of what to say quick enough. It really caught me off guard that someone would be so bold and crass to say something so demeaning, especially on a Greyhound where minorities are often the majority.

Even more frustrated at her situation, she yelled it again.

"NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER!"

I couldn't believe this was happening in the seat next to me. I was just trying to go home to see my family for the holidays and a two-person race riot was about to break out. I finally said something. "You know you're not going to solve anything by saying things like that." It sounded dumb when I said it, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say. She just looked at me and turned her head quick to the window and pouted.

"It's cool, man. She'll just walk to Texas now," the man in front of us said as he adjusted himself back into his seat. "Wait 'till we get to the next stop."

The woman next to me didn't say a thing after that. She knew she fucked up.

About five minutes later the bus pulled into a truck stop on the Texas border. The man in front got off the bus and told the bus driver, who was also Black, what had happened a few minutes before. When the break was over, the driver herded everyone back on the bus, closed the door, and started walking back to where we were all sitting.

"Excuse me, ma'am," the bus driver said. "But do you have a problem with Black people?"

"No, it's just that he..."

"You don't EVER call a Black person 'nigger!' Do you hear me?"

"Yeah, but he kept pushing his seat back and..."

"He has a name...” the bus driver said as he looked at the man in front. “What's your name, son?"

"Hakim," the man in front said.

"His name is Hakim. NOT nigger. You don't call him or any other Black person 'nigger' again. Do you hear me?"

The woman next to me became very teary eyed and just shook her head and said she was wrong to the bus driver, but not to Hakim. She wouldn’t even look in his direction.

"If we have any more problems with you then I'll kick you off this bus no matter where we are. You don't ever call a black person 'nigger, again." Shaking his head, he walked back to the driver's seat and we left the truck stop.

The woman next to me didn't say a thing for the rest of the trip, although I could hear her slightly sobbing into her pillow. I remember having mixed feelings then. I wanted to be angry at her, but instead I only felt a strange pity. Like when you know someone fucked up and they're paying for it. I just thought the whole situation was sad.

But what made me feel worse, was when I thought I heard Hakim sniffling a bit, too. He might have just had a cold, so I may be assuming things, but I started thinking about just how bad he must have felt and how fucked up it was to have that whole incident even happen in the first place. Even in the year 2001, people still had to deal with that kind of bullshit. I know things don’t change overnight, but I really thought we'd be further along than that by now.

As we were rode into Houston, I stared down the aisle at the front window and started thinking about everything that just happened and I began to feel guilt in myself. It was true that I did say something to her and I don’t think that I gave here the impression that I approved of what she did, it still wasn't enough. It wasn't enough because at times like that, it's important for people to not only know that those kind of things won't be tolerated, but that if they do happen, to let the person that they happen to know that they are not alone.

As I sat there in my seat, I thought about all the times that I let things like that slide. I though about how I've made excuses for other people when they said or did racist things, or didn't say anything at all when I should have said something. In this particular instance, I felt like I could have done more.

When the bus pulled into the terminal, Hakim grabbed his bags and got off the bus. As he was walking inside I approached him.

"Excuse me...but I just wanted to say that I was sorry about what happened back there, and...I wanted to apologize to you for not saying more when it did happen. It was fucked up, and even though I did say something, I should have been louder and I should have spoken up more than I did back there. And, uh...I just wanted to apologize to you for that."

Hakim looked kind of surprised at what I said.

“It’s cool, man. The bus driver said everything that needed to be said so it turned out alright.”

Then he pat me on the back. "I appreciate you saying that to me, though. Thank you."

We shook hands and then left to find our respective buses.

When I was apologizing to him, I think what I was really saying was that I was sorry for every time that I had ever done that during my entire life. For every time I heard a racist joke and didn’t say anything, or heard someone say something sexist, homophobic, or racist and kept my mouth shut when I should have screamed.

I felt really bad about what just happened on the bus. Not just for him or me, but for the whole lot of us. When I apologized to Hakim in the Greyhound Terminal, I was really apologizing to a lot of people all at once. He was just the one that heard me.

<< BACK