Plus there’s always the very compelling lubrication argument. No equality without lubrication eh

Maybe a year or two ago I was boarding a bus to get home in the evening. I suppose it was rush hour, but this particular bus was not as crowded as the term rush hour would have you believe. Still, all the seats were taken so there were a number of passengers standing up. Towards the front of the bus there were a few seats reserved for “disabled people or those less able to stand” with a polite reminder on a sticker that one should give up the seat should such a person require it. I was standing near the exit door when I saw an elderly man board the bus (with some difficulty I might add). He looked about 85, quite frail. On the “disabled seats” there were 2 aunties sitting there chatting away, and although he was standing right next to them, they simply ignored him and kept chatting. He was forced to stand until someone further down the bus noticed and got up to let him sit down. I could not believe that these women who were maybe 50 years old and looked healthy enough (they had bags of shopping, so presumably they were able to walk just fine carrying heavy bags) would just let this old man stand in the moving bus. For god’s sake would they treat their own father this way? He certainly looked the right age! (I doubt it would’ve made a difference otherwise, but the old man in question looked Indian as well – so it wasn’t a case of passive aggressive racism.)

I think the only thing one can do is put people in their place sometimes. Your average “shovee” isn’t a white early 20s student without any cultural inferiority complex though, so I may have had an advantage there. But it can only benefit the situation to tell people to their faces that they do not own the world and can’t treat others like dirt simply because most (poorer?) people won’t argue back.