I Thought He Wanted to Say Hello

A subway encounter with a stranger

The thing about being recognized is we always think—for that first half-second—that it’s going to be good. We would wonder if someone had read something we wrote or did and wanted to say hi because it meant something to them. Or maybe they just wanted to be nice.

I was stepping into the subway car the other day and he was getting off. Our eyes met, half-squinting, and there was that flicker of recognition on his face. I smiled, instinctively, stupidly, the way we do when we think someone knows us in a good way.

“Are you—” he started, and I thought, here we go, here’s a nice moment on a shitty day. “Do you write for the New Yorker? New York Magazine?”

“Yeah!” I smiled, like an idiot.

“I know who you are,” he said, and his face changed completely. “Fuck you.”

And then he just started screaming. Not talking, screaming into my face. I was halfway through the doors and he was on the platform and the doors were still open and he kept screaming. He called me a propagandist. He said I was destroying everything and that people like me were the problem and I was a liar. “A hack.” “A fucking disgrace.”

I just stood there. What am I supposed to do? Argue with someone who’s screaming fuck you at you on a subway platform? What is there to explain myself? How am I supposed to defend myself, or my work, to someone who’s already decided I was evil because apparently something I had written didn’t fit whatever narrative they’ve decided is the only true one?

The doors stayed open. They always stay open too long when you need them to close. Everyone in the car was watching, literally, while this guy kept screaming his throat raw at me, and I’m standing there taking it, and all these people are just staring. No one said or did anything. I, too, waited for the doors to close.

When they finally did, I sat down and my hands were shaking.

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Here’s what I think he hated: that I’m Palestinian and I won’t perform the role he’s assigned me. I am a person who chooses complexity when he wants certainty. And I refuse to be the kind of writer who exists only to confirm what people already believe.

I’ve spent the past years trying to tell stories that don’t flatten my people into symbols. My stories about my own people don’t treat suffering as a talking point or reduce lived experience to a debate position. I write because I have to, because it’s in my blood and my history and my present tense. I also write about the mess of being human in a world that wants everything to be simple.

And that’s the crime, apparently: being Palestinian and refusing to be only that. Writing about my people’s life without performing it for an audience that’s already decided what they want to hear, or telling complicated truths when people want stories that fit their side.

The guy on the platform—maybe I’ve written something that complicated his love for an oppressor. Maybe I’ve written something that made Palestinians seem human. Maybe I’ve just refused to be the kind of Palestinian writer who exists to make other people feel righteous about their positions.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I didn’t fit. I was too much of something or not enough of something else. To him, I was Palestinian in the wrong way. I was a writer in the wrong way. Or I was just wrong, period, for existing in public and having bylines and refusing to stay in whatever box would make everyone fucking comfortable.

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The truth, is, I was tired. I was so fucking tired.

I still didn’t know why he called me a propagandist. I think propaganda is what happens when you only tell people what they want to believe. It’s when you decide there’s only one acceptable story and everyone who tells it differently is lying.

But somewhere along the way, we’ve arrived at this place where if you don’t fit someone’s narrative perfectly, if you complicate it, if you add context that makes them uncomfortable, if you refuse to be a cheerleader for their team, then we’re lying. We are a people who deserve to be screamed at on a subway platform while strangers watch and do nothing. I guarantee you, it’s not fun.

It’s making it harder to do this work. Obviously because of fear—yeah, that’s there now in a way it wasn’t before—and because of the exhaustion. The weight of knowing that no matter what we write, someone is going to hate us for it. Someone is going to decide we’re the enemy. And they’re going to stop us on a subway platform and scream in our face.

The doors closed eventually. They always do. The train moved and the guy disappeared and everyone went back to their phones.

I’m still shaking a little writing this. I’m still trying to figure out what it means that we’ve gotten to this place where telling stories and doing our job means someone might recognize us and decide we deserve their rage.

The subway kept moving. I got off at my stop. I went home. And tomorrow I’ll write again, because what the fuck else am I supposed to do.