jasonfry:

New Yorkers aren’t unfriendly or unhelpful. What folks who think that miss is that we’re always jammed into a too small subway car or a too narrow sidewalk or a too cramped elevator. We don’t have enough physical space, so we give each other psychological space by minding our business. But if someone needs help, we’re there.

Tonight I was riding the 7 train out to Citi Field. At Grand Central, a guy who seemed to be somewhere on the eccentric/addled scale got on and yelled “my man’s going to Kennedy – JFK airport. Y’all got this?” He was intense enough that I looked up and saw he was pointing to a puzzled-looking Asian man who’d gotten on in front of him. He said it again – “JFK airport, y’all got this” and stepped back onto the platform.

The folks in the subway car started talking, verified the route, talked to the man to make sure he understood, found someone in the car who was getting off at the right stop, and deputized him to go with the man to the E train. Y’all got this? Yeah, we got this. We’re New Yorkers.

trotting-on:

I saw the movie eighth grade today and honestly the car scene is so fucking important. it perfectly exemplifies how older boys feel like they can take advantage of younger girls and guilt them into having sex. it also highlights this expectation for girls to “put out” or else they’re prude. the fact that he tells her she’ll be “bad at sex” her first time because she didn’t want to have sex in the back of a car with a boy she didn’t know, who claimed he was “looking out for her,” points to the inevitable truth that someone will eventually judge her for her sexual experiences and that saying no will result in anger and cause her to feel shame and it’s just such a terrible truth of a young girls life to realize all those things and the power a boy can have over her and it was just captured so perfectly