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Uncharitably, this is just "Bitches be lyin'" written as a more tactful and polished effortpost.
More charitably, you are probably touching on some actual insight but casting it in an uncharitable light (as much as you tell yourself you are trying to be charitable - you don't want to believe women are all lying about being harassed, after all.)
(1) There probably is a lot of redaction in their own recollections going on here. Everyone is guilty of this, not just women. How many people have you known who will tell an exaggerated version of an incident you were witness to and are quite sure didn't actually go down the way they said it did? Are you quite confident that everything you remember, especially unpleasant incidents (like your confrontation with the black guy on the bus) happened exactly the way you remember it? That no one else might reasonably have a different version based on what they saw? And have you never been tempted, even a little, to throw an extra detail or two into a story which then became cemented in your mind as the true narrative?
Probably some of these women's "harassment" experiences were like that - a guy brushed against her, and she shuddered and in her mind, the dude was trying to grope her. Someone looked at her funny and she remembers it as being oggled. She got an uncomfortable vibe on a bus, even though no one actually said or did anything to her, and she felt unsafe which in her mind became "I was harassed."
That probably does explain some of it, but I doubt very much that every one of these women is just outright making things up to hide their true feelings ("Eww, people who take public transit are gross!")
(2) You may indeed be a perceptive person who pays attention to your surroundings, but "I watch what goes on on my buses and I've never seen any women get harassed" is still quite a failure of reasoning. I don't regularly ride public transit, but I have done so many times in my life. I can think of maybe one or two times I saw something I'd consider harassment (and it was very minor, like a whistle or a couple of lewd comments). Most people, most days, on most buses, don't harass people. But if you assume some people on some days will, a woman who rides the bus multiple times has pretty good odds of eventually having it happen to her, even if it's not on a bus you happen to be on. Or you might not notice it, because you didn't see the guy who was giving creepy stares to the woman across the aisle from him, or the guy who sat down next a woman and gave off creep vibes so she moved seats. (And you'd of course question why she thought he gave off "creep vibes" because women lie and make things up so she had no rational reason to think that, right?) So congratulations, you have never personally witnessed a literal sexual assault or a guy committing what you consider harassment. At the same time, you clearly have witnessed a lot of antisocial behavior. Is it possible women experience (and are subject to) antisocial behavior on a level and at a frequency you are not, and that you might not notice all the things that happen that aren't "He literally put hands on her or yelled things about what he wanted to do to her ass"?
Also, would it surprise you if I told you I have never gotten in a fight with a black guy on a bus? Maybe I think you are making that up because it fits your narrative about black people. I have ridden the bus with black people quite often and never seen anyone start a fight.
(3) Yes, a lot of it is probably "vibes." Women know the kind of people who ride buses are also the kind of people likely to harass them or at least make them feel uncomfortable. There is probably a degree of exaggeration or remembering things that maybe didn't quite happen exactly as they tell it to justify the fact that they don't want to ride public transit with creepy gross guys who might harass them, but because of leftist ideology they can't state it in a such a racist/classist way.
So, you aren't 100% wrong here, but you're still reaching for a justification to believe bitches be lyin'.
One thing that may explain some difference between your experience and the OP's experience is that buses are very different to forms of public transportation that have more separation between the conductor/driver and passengers. A public transit train can easily leave someone much more isolated with a stranger than a bus can.
My experience isn't limited to buses. Subways, metro rail, Amtrak, trolleys, etc.
I saw a Black guy try to start a fight last week on the subway… does my anecdote beat yours?
I’ve also had multiple Black guys try to start fights on the bus with me for no reason - I think it really depends where you live and how often you take public transportation.
I never had issues on public transit living in Chicago but I only took it once or twice a week. In both Philly and NYC I take public transit every single day in both cases have run into people attempting to start fights, either with me or others.
No, because I'm not claiming black guys never start fights on the subway. That wasn't even my point - I do not actually doubt Hoffmeister experienced what he experienced.
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Bro. If you know it's uncharitable, then by the very rules of this forum you shouldn't be saying it. Come on man, a moderator should know better than to make this kind of swipe (the second I've seen from you recently, at that).
Amadan: "I'm a mod, not a saint."
Let the mods have a little fun. It's perfectly fine to be a little jocular, this isn't SCOTUS arguments.
This isn't having fun, this is openly breaking the rules. That's my issue.
I don't feel like his statements crossed the line, especially in the context of the overall conversation on the platform. It was couched in a lot of engaging and complimentary verbiage, with a little jab at the end. That seems like something I would find acceptable when I did it myself.
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The rule is that you should extend charity to someone's views (as I did to Hoffmeister by pointing out there are multiple ways in which his perspective can be viewed, and assuming he isn't just arguing that "Bitches be lyin'"), not that you can never suggest the less charitable interpretation might be true.
I would not mod someone for saying "What you said could charitably be read as A, and uncharitably as B" and proceeding to analyze both A and B.
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