Rapids Response
Hats off--but not niqabs--for Grand Rapids' bus authority. The Interurban Transit Partnership ended a policy that allowed drivers to refuse service to anyone with a covered face after a Muslim woman was told she'd have to unveil herself before she could ride a public bus.
In a city of more than a million people, among whom there always will be "the poor", public transportation is a necessary evil if you're a taxpayer; therefore, if you're a taxpayer, you have a right to ride--or not--and what you wear without harming others should be beside the point. Can we as Americans agree that Grand Rapids is not Jerusalem (or cities throughout Europe), that our public buses are not commercial jets, and to not torch another bridge between ourselves and our ideals until lighting the match is at least a tough choice?
Unfortunately, no ('though some of the knee jerks come with a few worthy one liners about women and Islam). Nevertheless, the buses in Grand Rapids--with all aboard--will roll on. Remember that on the long road ahead . . .
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3 comments:
Don't get me started on this! lol....
It doesn't surprise me in the least bit that a veiled woman would be banned from a bus by a Rapid driver. Quite a few of the the Rapid's drivers are quite rude and officious in their demeanor. Some are also quite amiable and do perform their job in exemplary professional manner. But the bad attitude goes to the Front Office ultimately.
No, the Rapid is not the only transit system with problems dealing with cultural diversity. Observing people on mass transit will give you a pretty good idea of the local social climate. Grand Rapids is not good.
In the first place, there seems to be a general attitude that riding public transportation is reserved for the poor, physically challenged, or mentally afflicted.
Walking is also seem as a social statement. Why else would someone in their right mind walk from place to place and possibly have to walk past some scary person?
And whether or not a person is a taxpayer, it's a matter of that person being a Paying Patron of a Public Service.
Amerika still has some serious "racial" issues which it still seems to choose to run away from rather than face and cease practicing self-destructive insensitivities. Grand Rapids does a fine job of keeping itself near the top of that list of places needing more more social and spiritual enlightenment.
It's so odd and discouragingly predictable that wishing someone God's Grace and Love in an Arabic language creates so much fear and trepidation from our locals.....
Asalaam Alaikum
Peace
Hi, LV! Glad you made it.
Point taken, re: "Paying Patron of a Public Service" (and it's fun to say!) But look what the public's getting for its fare, let alone its tax dollars: service that, as you say, is often rude; lines that in many communities run chronically late; and, of course, the inflexibility of being on somebody else's schedule in the first place. Racism ranks fourth on this list, 'though your mileage on the #2 to Kalamazoo may vary.
It's easy to explain public transportation's perception, and much harder to justify its existence the smaller your community. Other public agencies, as well as non-profit and charitable organizations serve the physically and mentally challenged. Public transportation is left for poor people who need it to work and shop, a worthy investment only the public sector can make because there's little if any money in it. Privatizing public transportation, even if it made the service more efficient and courteous, won't pry me, or most Americans, away from the wheel (an inconvenient truth for the environment, yes), and I imagine most people without cars wish they could say the same.
I know only one city in America in which public buses are mass transit with mass appeal (and deservedly so): Portland. Anywhere else?
I remember enjoying a lovely bus ride from Palm Harbor to Clearwater Mall (Klearwater?) one fine summer day. The bus was cool and comfortable and the patrons elderly and non-threatening. And no one gave me any guff for my ancestral Irish Leprachan outfit and faux pot of gold (of course, me conspicuous shilelah silenced most disent), but those were the halcyon '80's, long before we decended into our current cesspool of racial hatred that's made everyone so wealthy and lazy.
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