It’s 8:30 AM the Friday before Labor Day weekend. Young and old, black and white get on the train at Jarvis. A black man wearing a business suit gets on at Morse. At Loyola there’s a white women with a stroller, and a black woman on her cell phone. A young girl texts a friend. A man in torn jeans calls but there is no answer. He’s holding a note pad and a large dictionary.
I also was holding a note pad that day. I observed who got on and who got off the Red Line at each stop from Howard to 95th Street and back again. It took about 3 hours all told. I saw the neighborhoods change as the passengers changed - - in dress, skin color, and temperment. I saw people moving in the world together, yet silently sitting in their own silent worlds while en route to their own private destinations. The only break in the library-like silence of the train was the occasional giggle of little children who didn’t know any better.
At Bryn Mawr a black boy waves to another passenger and makes them laugh. while other riders talk on the phone, text their friends, and listen to their iPods. At Berwyn, the boys’ mother holds her phone up to her son’s ear to have him join her conversation with a friend. When the child departs with his mother at Lawerence, he waves goodbye.
The diversity of the passengers is apparent at Lawerence as white, black and Hispanic board the train. At Jackson, the same diversity is visible amidst the sounds of a street performer who sings hip hop as the doors are closing. At Grand and Roosevelt, two Asian men board the train, and an Indian man boards at Garfield Park.
On the north side, passengers are largely white, wearing jeans or shorts. A girl sits next to me reading her eBook while holding a cup of coffee in her other hand. Several white men on the train choose to stand near the doors even though there are seats available.
On the south side, black passengers follow social norms that are less formal. Many nod off and sleep, some eat their breakfast, talk audibly on their cell phones, or put their feet up on a nearby seat while singing along with their MP3 player.
The racial divide on the morning train is obvious at Jackson, Monroe, and Chicago. Black men and women exit and white men and women get on. Also, white men exit at 35th street for the Sox game, and at the Addison stop for the Cub game.
No one boards the train at Granville and Argyle on the north side or 63rd, 69th, and 87th on the south side. At 79th street I realize for the first time that I am the only white person on the train car. For a moment I feel fearful. Then I smell pickles and see a woman behind me grab an onion ring from her Burger King sack and I realize I’m just part of the fabric of a diverse tapestry of people who ride the Red Line on the way to somewhere each day.
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