By Gamal Hennessy
Ten questions raised by yesterday’s subway stabbing in New York
1. How many of us think “I might get stabbed on a subway train today?”
2. Why is so much of our violence based in hatred of “The Other”?
3. How does our own internal anger translate into stabbing someone who did something so offensive as offering us a seat?
4. Why can’t we be comfortable in our own skin without worrying about the violent hatred of strangers?
5. If violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum, what triggered this attack? Was it really just a racist woman who didn’t want to sit next to a Black person?
6. If we can’t be safe in a public place surrounded by people, where can we be safe?
7. What did she hope to accomplish by stabbing a person who offered her a seat? What was she trying to prove? What did she hope to gain?
8. What details are missing from this story?
9. How long will it take for the white nationalists to claim this hate crime as symptomatic of everything wrong with women, Hispanics, Blacks and transgender people in America?
10. What the fuck is wrong with people?