Black man refuses to back down to train conductor

Thursday, February 9

I am standing in the corridor of a crowded train traveling from Lucca to Padova, reading the autobiography of Sidney Poitier, when I witness an episode of pure irony. Poitier writes of always feeling like an outsider because of his race while coming of age in the 1950s and 60s.

“Society had created laws to keep me at a distance or out of sight altogether. Were outsiders simply trespassers obliged by the nature of their lives to be constantly on the alert, known as
‘one of those’ but never as ‘one of us’?”

This, I fear, is still the fate of many black people in Italy, and today I observe this first hand. A black passenger, whom I guess to be about 45, is told he has to leave the train at the next stop. The conductor maintains that the passenger's ticket does not allow sufficient kilometers for his destination. There is a generic type of train ticket one can purchase to travel 10 kilometers, another for 20 kilometers, and so on. Based on where the man started (which the conductor could see, because before one enters a train, tickets must be inserted into a machine that stamps the starting date, time and location), he will have to exit at the next stop. An argument ensues, partly in Italian and partly in heavily accented Nigerian English, and I don't understood all the details of what each was saying. I'm not convinced that the parties arguing understand each other completely, either. The conductor is adamant that the man must get off and purchase another ticket to continue, but the passenger points out there would be no time to purchase a ticket and still get back on the same train.

When the stop comes, the conductor insists that the passenger leave the train, but the man refuses. The conductor wants to see the passenger’s identity card, and the man refuses this also. All this is taking place in the corridor, and I am the only witness, a fly on the wall, so to speak.

“At the next station, then, I’ll call the police,” the conductor states angrily.

“Go ahead and call the police," replies the passenger, waving his arms in the air. “I’ll be happy to talk to them.”

The train starts up again, the passenger takes his seat, and the conductor goes to the front of the train. But pretty soon, they are both back in the corridor, this time with the conductor’s senior officer. He seems more conciliatory and says the man can just pay the fee for the extra kilometers, something the conductor had not allowed previously. However, the man now says he doesn't have the additional seven euros and adds that the people in the train station told him that the ticket he had was sufficient for his destination. The conductor, however, carries a little computer, which he checks, and declares that the city in question is just over the limit of the ticket.

Again, the black man is asked for his identity papers and he refuses. I’m sure they assume he doesn’t have them, as do I. The passenger asks for his ticket back, but the officers refuse. I am sorely tempted to pull out my wallet and offer to pay the seven euros, but I refrain because I am not sure it would be wise to interfere in a situation that I don’t really understand. Instead I wait to see what will happen, which for now is nothing. After another minute of arguing, the train officials leave and the man goes back to his seat. Now I leave my place in the corridor and seek out the passenger to see if there is anything I can do to help. He is friendly and grateful for my sympathy, but he says he does not need any help. He says he doesn’t intend to pay extra, and he doesn't mind if they call the police. He pulls out his wallet and shows me his identity card. His wallet is stuffed full of other documents as well, and I suspect he might even have the seven euros the officials were asking for.

“Why should I give them my identity card?” he asks. “Who knows what they’ll do with it or write about me? If they call the police, I’ll show the police my papers and tell them I had a ticket. Those men are just trying to make it hard on me. They don't like black people here. I used to be able to find work here, but not anymore.”

I don't know whether I believe that the man was told that his ticket was adequate for his destination or not, but I don't find it hard to believe that he was singled out for his skin color. Lucy later tells me that she saw a group of black men riding the train who got up and changed sections when they saw the conductor coming, apparently trying to evade him. Could the conductor have been taking out his frustration on the blacks who were running away from him by singling out this man who didn't try to hide? My friend Steve, who has lived in Italy since 1986, thinks that is quite possible.

“The Italians are afraid of the Africans,” he says. “They are afraid they are taking jobs away from Italians, but that doesn't make sense, because most of the jobs the Africans do the Italians wouldn't do anyway.”

Steve tells me a story about when he was a pastor in Rome and the church members engaged in street evangelism. Three black women who went out with the group did not return with the others because they were arrested by a policewoman for sharing their Christian faith, though there is no law against this. They were released without charges, but the incident pointed out to Steve the different treatment some police officers give to Africans and African-Italians. In some ways, the attitude of Italians towards blacks is similar to America in the 50s and 60s, he says, reminding me that I was reading about this era when I witnessed the train incident.

It goes both ways, though, Steve elaborates. The Africans do try to avoid and evade the law because many are in Italy without permission and they can little afford the high cost of living here. The police are frustrated and mistrustful and come down harder on the Africans than they do on Italians or Europeans. Steve said that the black passenger I observed may indeed have been paying the price for the Africans who fled the conductor earlier. I do believe, from my prior experiences, that if I had been the one in possession of an improper ticket, I would have been let off with a cordial warning. In fact, this has happened to me on both trains and buses previously.

It seems, though, that in this case, these two train officials have met their match. They can't physically force the man to leave, and in the end, they don't call the police. The passenger exits at his originally intended destination with no fine or arrest.

I report all this with full awareness that my background on the relationship between Italians and Africans is limited. It’s obviously a complex issue and has much to do with Italy's position in the Mediterranean, its proximity to Africa and the fact that is has around 5,000 miles of coastline that its military can't begin to protect against illegal immigrants. Africans flood into Italy and can't find jobs, but they don't want to return to Africa because they are no better off there. Many become street vendors, and, lacking the resources to purchase business licenses, they must be ready to bundle up their wares and run from the police at any time. I don’t pretend to have any idea how to solve these problems, but my goal is to write about what I see here, and today I witness up close a clash between these two forces. I may well see more such incidents in the future.