Positionality

Hello from the South Bronx! In the last two weeks that I’ve been working with WHEDco, I realize that the most time I have for thought and reflection takes place during my commute. To make a brief outline: on the days I start at WHEDco at 9:30 AM, I leave my home in suburban New Jersey at 7:40 AM to get on the 7:55 AM train to New York Penn Station. On a good day, that’s 30 minutes from Radburn to Secaucus, then a hectic transfer to the next train headed to New York. With constant construction on the Amtrak tunnel between NJ and NYC, a 15 minute trip is easily 20 to 30 minutes. Then more frenzy, pushing, and run-walking to the Uptown 2 train. I see the midtown crowd board, get off, and keep going, past 125th Street, past the Hub, onto the El, and a couple more stops to Freeman Street: easily another 45 minutes.

During that time, caught without a book or music, the most constant entertainment is people watching. The change in demographic and scenery from the beginning of my journey to the end says as much as I ever could about the background of the place I live, the city I call home, and where I work in Crotona Park East. In that frame, I recognize by the change in others the constants of myself: my age, gender, class, and race.

I am easily the youngest commuter to get on the morning train. Conductors often make a point of telling me which station I should transfer at, despite the fact that there’s only one and I have a monthly pass (a clear demarcation of a tried and true commuter). Suits and loafers or pencil skirts and heels are the default until the subway heads north of 59th Street. After that, the demographic changes. When the subway car thins out, it’s easier to see who else is making the same trip. Typically, it becomes less, white, less male, and younger. People come and go, carrying about their daily business. Riders are more talkative, less solemn, possibly more relaxed (or maybe just less cramped). When the subway rises above ground, I’m not the only one who surveys the buildings and boulevards going past. In that span, I also become more accustomed to people giving me a once-over when they go past: a young, white woman in semi-professional wear far outside of Manhattan stands out more and more the further I go.

While when I leave home, I feel out of place because I am underdressed and younger than most everyone else around me, by the time I enter the Bronx the factors that separate me from my fellow subway riders are overwhelmingly race and class. In that liminal space of transit, I become increasingly aware every day, on every trip, of these factors. When I get off the subway at Freeman Street in Crotona Park East, I cannot ignore my positionality and the privilege that comes with it.