Busing It

My chosen method of accessing ASU's Tempe campus is to park in the distant (but relatively less expensive) parking lots and then use the provided shuttle buses to close the gap between my car and my destination.

Yes, this really is what it looks like. I ride these green monsters every day!

My usual bus ride routine is to snag an empty seat and then bury my head in a book. It is part of my success strategy for grad school, to use every available bit of time to get a little more homework done. So far, it seems to be working pretty well.

But on Thursday, although I still rode the shuttle bus, I was feeling lazy and so spent my trip looking at the scenery. I was late coming in due to unexpectedly horrific traffic on the freeway, and so there were few passengers on my ride. At the first stop, a young woman moved to the front door of the bus to exit just before the bus stopped. The brakes locked and gasped, the back door opened, but as I looked on I realized that the bus driver had not opened the front door despite the student waiting at his elbow. Just as I was realizing what was transpiring in front of me, she turned and, with a look of what I interpreted as defiant resignation, sauntered slowly to the back door of the bus and exited. Her eyes met mine, briefly, as she passed, and we shared a look of commiseration that was completely unequal. How could I know what one more slight, one more act of prejudice, feels like?

I watched, and although this particular bus driver did not open the front door at the next stop either, still I had to wonder. What had I just witnessed? Was I reading into it something that was not there? Were my eyes and recent attenuation to issues of race and gender playing tricks on me?

Does it matter that the student was a women with dark brown skin and the bus driver a middle-aged white man?