The 49 Line
It was one of the older, rustier, more worn-down Muni buses that turned onto Van Ness and stopped to pick us up. It squeaked and jolted and bounced along the street toward Market Street, and beyond that, the turn onto Mission. In the window of a ramshackle apartment building, I saw a sign reading "Free Marilyn Buck".
I had never heard of Marilyn Buck until today. Clearly, she is one of many contradictory figures in the world. It is hard to fault her causes, sovereignty for minorities, anti-racism, and anti-imperialism. It is a harder question to judge her participation in violent movements. Do any ends justify the use of violence? Terrorists would say yes, but so would the instigators of the American Revolution. Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi would say no, but they were both assassinated.
At the second bus stop, a middle-aged Asian man climbed through the back door of the bus, and the driver yelled at him over the PA system, making him come up to the front to show his transfer. Trilingual signs on the doors have always said to enter at the front door only, but that has rarely been observed, or particularly enforced. But Muni is undergoing a budget crisis, and needs to make sure that fares are being paid, and really, it is fair to expect every passenger to pay to use public transit.
As the bus ride continued, the driver continued to yell and scold and make passengers who got on at the back disembark and come back through the front door, telling us, "Muni is changing, people. You have to get on at the front," and telling us that she could flag down a police officer to cite those in violation. Passengers who were thus scolded looked confused, then disbelieving, or they laughed, or they looked indignant, probably all to conceal a bit of embarrassment.
No one likes to be the target of angry yelling.
The driver was probably doing them a favor in trying to inculcate front-door entry, but it sure didn't make for a friendly, relaxed trip, and it wasn't like the driver was doing it out of compassion. She was doing her job.
One problem with big cities is a lack of friendliness, for whatever reason: language barriers, fear, poverty and resentment, just too damn many people in too small of an area, like a crowded bus.
At the 24th and Mission Bart Station, a well-dressed man with a bullhorn was preaching in front of a banner for the Iglesia Pentecostal Rey de Reyes, or something like the Pentecostal Church of the King of Kings. "Yo soy la luz, la verdad, y la vida", his banner read, the light, the truth, and the life being the rough translation. "Escapa por tu vida . . . Cristo viene!" I think this read "Run for your life, Christ is coming!" What is the strength of a religion that asks you to fear the ostensible savior? Granted, the message is more nuanced than that, in that there can also be the interpretation of hurrying to find a better life before Christ comes knocking, but the element of fear is undeniable.
In the context of this fear, Michael Savage, the hatemonger from SF conservative radio who called the Quran a 'hateful little book', just looks ridiculous. Every religion is a mix of hope and fear, reward and punishment. The problem is what people do in the name of the religion, which often has very little to do with the religion itself.
And when people preach and yell about religion, it just doesn't feel very friendly. It just doesn't feel like they are preaching for our benefit, but for their own.
There are no easy answers to be had about anything to do with people, whether it is a person such as Marilyn Buck or a street preacher, and sometimes conflict is just conflict, such as between the bus driver and the passengers, and the only thing you can do is get off the bus, go to a coffee shop, and buy a chai latte, to which you can add sugar and cinnamon, and enjoy the quiet.
I had never heard of Marilyn Buck until today. Clearly, she is one of many contradictory figures in the world. It is hard to fault her causes, sovereignty for minorities, anti-racism, and anti-imperialism. It is a harder question to judge her participation in violent movements. Do any ends justify the use of violence? Terrorists would say yes, but so would the instigators of the American Revolution. Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi would say no, but they were both assassinated.
At the second bus stop, a middle-aged Asian man climbed through the back door of the bus, and the driver yelled at him over the PA system, making him come up to the front to show his transfer. Trilingual signs on the doors have always said to enter at the front door only, but that has rarely been observed, or particularly enforced. But Muni is undergoing a budget crisis, and needs to make sure that fares are being paid, and really, it is fair to expect every passenger to pay to use public transit.
As the bus ride continued, the driver continued to yell and scold and make passengers who got on at the back disembark and come back through the front door, telling us, "Muni is changing, people. You have to get on at the front," and telling us that she could flag down a police officer to cite those in violation. Passengers who were thus scolded looked confused, then disbelieving, or they laughed, or they looked indignant, probably all to conceal a bit of embarrassment.
No one likes to be the target of angry yelling.
The driver was probably doing them a favor in trying to inculcate front-door entry, but it sure didn't make for a friendly, relaxed trip, and it wasn't like the driver was doing it out of compassion. She was doing her job.
One problem with big cities is a lack of friendliness, for whatever reason: language barriers, fear, poverty and resentment, just too damn many people in too small of an area, like a crowded bus.
At the 24th and Mission Bart Station, a well-dressed man with a bullhorn was preaching in front of a banner for the Iglesia Pentecostal Rey de Reyes, or something like the Pentecostal Church of the King of Kings. "Yo soy la luz, la verdad, y la vida", his banner read, the light, the truth, and the life being the rough translation. "Escapa por tu vida . . . Cristo viene!" I think this read "Run for your life, Christ is coming!" What is the strength of a religion that asks you to fear the ostensible savior? Granted, the message is more nuanced than that, in that there can also be the interpretation of hurrying to find a better life before Christ comes knocking, but the element of fear is undeniable.
In the context of this fear, Michael Savage, the hatemonger from SF conservative radio who called the Quran a 'hateful little book', just looks ridiculous. Every religion is a mix of hope and fear, reward and punishment. The problem is what people do in the name of the religion, which often has very little to do with the religion itself.
And when people preach and yell about religion, it just doesn't feel very friendly. It just doesn't feel like they are preaching for our benefit, but for their own.
There are no easy answers to be had about anything to do with people, whether it is a person such as Marilyn Buck or a street preacher, and sometimes conflict is just conflict, such as between the bus driver and the passengers, and the only thing you can do is get off the bus, go to a coffee shop, and buy a chai latte, to which you can add sugar and cinnamon, and enjoy the quiet.
posted by Devin at 1:27 PM
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