I own a business in front of which there happens to be a lousy bus stop.
This bus stop has caused innumerable annoyances, most of which are harmless in the scheme of things. The bus stop has also caused real problems, which are not harmless. There is trash and vandalism at this bus stop, like anywhere else. Sometimes the trash is syringes. When it is syringes, I put on a pair of gloves and dispose of them properly in one of the biohazard containers I actually do have handy. Then I call up Trimet and tell them about it. They always say they will follow up with me, but so far they have yet to do that. I have called them frequently since September 2004 about the syringes, the vandalism, the smoking in my entryway. But this isn't about Trimet. Even if they do blow me off because they suck. Probably the person who is supposed to follow up with me is instant messaging with his old college buddy about how boring his stupid job is.
People who are waiting for the bus often choose to wait on my doorstep instead of in the shelter where they are supposed to wait. These people can be loud, they can be smoking, they can be downright scary, and I need for them to not wait for the bus in my doorway. Every day I open that door and ask them to please not wait for the bus on my front stoop. Most of them apologize and move on. Some of them look at the doorway and the big sign on the sidewalk like they never noticed there was a business here before, oh sorry, I'll move. And then there are the people who want to fight about it. Technically, it is trespassing. I have yet to say that to any of them, but the law is done being broke, and I am sick and tired of people waiting for the bus and smoking (did I mention they smoke?) in my doorway! Today, two boys, aged around 12 or 13, were waiting for the bus in my doorway. They were being loud and loudly expressing themselves with words I won't write here because my mama reads this website. Suffice it to say these words were worse than plain old cussing like fuck. So I asked them, quietly and kindly, to please wait for the bus at the bus stop and not in my doorway. One of them said this:
"You just don't like black people at YOUR shop."
There were camels and backs and straws involved.
I told that kid, this time, a little louder, that my asking him to move off my stoop had nothing to do with being black, but it was about my business not being a place where you wait for the bus. He argued it with me, which I couldn't believe, and pointed at the bus stop sign and said that the bus stop had been here longer than my shop. But this argument I had with a goddamn disrespectful kid isn't what this is about either. Still, I had to tell the kid that I had been here longer than him, and he should definitely be getting out of my face before things got uglier than they already had.
The people at the bus stop that cause us the most grief are indeed not white people. Whenever I ask one of the people at the bus stop to go smoke somewhere other than my stoop I really feel that. It is a pang of shame that I feel about it, too, this thing about them being not white and my being white. I know that the business I have opened in this neighborhood does not help the economy that is their local economy; their local economy gets edged out to somewhere else. Still, this space where I put my business was vacant and anyone could have rented it. And had those kids been white kids, you bet I would have asked them to move. I know there is no simple answer to this problem, save one involving explosives and the bus stop. And maybe some Jack Daniels and a big truck.
I think it is bullshit that this kid pulled the race card on me, and I think it is bullshit that Trimet won't take any responsibility for the damage it's ridership does to my business. I also think it is bullshit that I feel guilty for asserting my hard-earned boundaries on a jackass in training.