Give us your tired, your hungry, your poor, and your prisoners.
New York City prepares you for everything. Seeing people intentionally slam into each other? Seen it. Bathrooms so gross you would rather die than touch the doorknob? Seen it. Guy in a blue taffeta dress walking down 42nd Street? Saw it last weekend. Yes, New York takes the shock factor out of almost everything, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that nobody acknowledged a prisoner walking down Madison Avenue during rush hour a few days ago.
But it did.
Under typical circumstances, I might understand how people would overlook him, seeing as how it was rush hour. But, this wasn’t typical. It wasn’t a hunch; it wasn’t racial profiling; and, it certainly wasn’t a Colombo-style act I can take credit for. No, right there on the sidewalk was a man in a bright orange jumpsuit with a black number plastered on his chest, holding a black garbage bag I can only assume was filled with his “personal items.”
Really, New York? You scare me more than felons.
They day we start overlooking America’s Most Wanted is truly the day I question ourselves as a people. A people so focused on staring at the sidewalk while walking that they don’t bother to see that the man who just brushed their shoulder is wearing a jumpsuit that practically glows in the dark and screams, “Freeze, and put your hands where I can see them!” Perhaps we’re just liberal. Or, perhaps, New Yorkers really have seen it all.
Tags: New York City, Observations
