Me First, Me Alone

The culture of “me first” reared its selfish head in a couple of incidents I was part of earlier this week.

On Monday, as I was walking toward the entrance of the local JCC, I came upon a small bus from which quite elderly men and women were disembarking with the help of the driver. The sidewalk we were about to share was not wide enough for us all, so I stopped for a moment to give them room to maneuver and get on their way.

While I stood there and they continued to get off the bus, several able-bodied people – some leaving, others arriving – shot around us all as if we were not there. One woman intent on texting hardly looked up as she rushed toward her very important goal. Fortunately, no one was hurt or even bumped (as far as I could tell), so perhaps I was being too cautious. But I wondered at our reluctance to make room for one another, to be careful in the presence of others.

Tuesday I drove to Severance Hall to pick up a couple of tickets for this weekend’s concert. As I walked toward the door, a man came up behind me. He was obviously in a major hurry. I held the door open for him (out of self-defense?), and we both went into the lobby. A patron was at the ticket window, followed in line by a younger man. The older man I’d met outside asked the younger if he could go ahead of him in line because he just had to pick up something.

The younger man agreed, explaining that the worked there and had time. At this the older man asked him if he got a discount on his tickets. He replied that he did. “How much?” asked the first. “Something like 20%,” was his reply.

At which the older man asked the younger if he would buy his tickets for him so he could get the discount. The younger said no, he couldn’t do that. The older held up a credit card to him and said that he could put the discounted tickets directly on that card. He seemed to me to be absolutely serious. The younger man again declined the request, and as the beggar approached the window the younger’s eyes and mine met with looks that said, “Can you believe that?”

I overheard the older man tell the person on the other side of the ticket window that he lives in Moreland Hills, which is one of the Cleveland area’s most prosperous suburbs. No one who lives there should be asking another to compromise his integrity for a discount on orchestra tickets.

There are many ways other than by race to speak privilege, to push and beg our way to where we think we deserve to be, to ignore or use others to get what we want when we want it. I am no exception. We all tend to do what we think we can get by with, propelled by the fantasy that we’ve somehow earned a blue ribbon that says we are better than those traveling with us on life’s walkways, or standing with us in life’s lines. Can’t we do better?