It's like that comic about the guy with a plateful of cookies telling one guy that ta third guy is going to take his singular cookie. There are 2 types of republicans - one that takes, and one that gets taken from just as much as the left. The prior group has convinced the latter group that the actual thief is the left, who are in just as bad of a position as they are, if not worse. That's why they can't believe it. They're not taking everything, at least not enough to make ends meet most of the time, same as us. It's the much smaller fraction of rich republicans that are doing the taking. The issue is that they can't believe that truth, and so they lash out and become a completely different problem.

Sometimes, but not always. I used to call myself colorblind, but I could see how the cops treated my black friends worse than they treated me. At one point, they rounded us up waiting at the bus stop (there was an abandoned restaurant by the bus stop, and the cops said we were trying to break in), and all my POC friends got frisked, but I was the only blonde girl, so I just got a talking to about how "hanging out with the wrong crowd will ruin my life". Some of those kids are working on their PhD now, so "wrong crowd", kiss my ass.

I understood "colorblind" as a "skin tone has no bearing on how I interact with you, we're all human".

I always thought that "everybody gets treated the same at first, adjust as we go along" was respectful, but then moved to the west coast and it's apparently a horribly racist thing to do here, and I don't understand why?? Something about how black people are going through struggles I can't understand, but I also thought that everybody had struggles I don't know about?

Like, if I don't make assumptions about somebody in a wheelchair, it's a good thing and not ableist, but if I don't make assumptions about a black person, it's a bad thing and racist? I have never been able to understand how people up here think it's less racist to stereotype an ethnicity.

There's also the problem with white "leftists" up here not actually knowing any POC and getting it from fucking facebook memes. Like, I had a white person once tell me, in all seriousness, that me saying "hey, what's up" is appropriating AAVE and the correct thing to say in greeting to a black person is "I see and respect our differences". I said that sounded patronizing as fuck, and she said I should join the kkk with that attitude.

Unlearning racism has been an awful experience, really. I'm listening to what black people say they want, but that's somehow still racist, and I'm so close to just giving up and doing what feels right to me.

That sounds like a good way to approach the situation.

Ask the other rider to fix their behavior. If they don't, ask the conductor to ask the other rider to fix their behavior. If they don't, I don't think you need to call the cops.

The conductor could just as much charge the rider some fee that can be posted in the rider policy of the train, in the train, in the ticketing app for the train, at the station, etc. This way the train owner/operator can collect some remedy for the rider's violation of the rules to help fund remediating the rider's impact to the train environment (like cleaning their specific seat when that's usually outside the conductor's responsibilities), including a markup if they want to add that.

Now, I don't think charging fees will work for every violation. But I still think it's a valid lever the train owner/operator could make use of instead of bringing the entire train to a halt.

If the rider refuses to pay up, then call the cops. Or, the conductor could also ask the rider in violation to exit the train at the next stop. That's another option. If that fails, call the cops.

Additionally, if cops are needed, the conductor could call them and ask them to meet the train at one of the stops coming up. This way the arrival of the cops could be timed with the arrival of the train to the station. Minimizes impact to everyone else's schedule, and ensures cops have access to the train since most of the time spent on a train is in between stations which often isn't accessible by road.

I think there are ways to better manage this than to stop a train as soon as a conductor witnesses a violation and start a train only after cops arrive to that specific location and escort the rider violator off the train.

Remove from the train ≠ arrested

I disagree. If the conductor tells someone to stop being an asshole and they curse back, they’re belligerent and noncompliant, and it’s reasonable to have the police remove them from the train.

Cool, but that's not disagreeing with what I said.