I heard our transportation secretary say our subways are dirty and dangerous. It is something I’ve heard throughout my life and even parroted early on in my adulthood. As someone who now rides the subway as their only means of transportation and is obsessed with how the subway works and doesn’t work, it has become a revealing statement for understanding how people are racist and can’t separate how they feel about people and how cities work.
Yes, the subway can be dirty. However, it is also perpetually having funds diverted towards other things, and you know what? Cars are also very dirty, you just have chosen to accept that dirty because it allows you to remain isolated from the world. It is fascinating to me how people refuse to admit that automobile infrastructure is racist (saw Elon Tweet this recently), and are unable to separate dirty, confusing, and loud subway with dirty, confusing, and loud automobiles.
I have come to the point in my life if someone is passionately fighting for their vehicle rights, they are like center right of everything else going on in the world. I don’t have anything against people owning an automobile and making their way in the world. However, if you are championing the automobile over buses, subway, bikes, and pedestrians, then you are a champion of the systemic racism that makes our world such a toxic place whether you want to believe it or not.
