The E train to Jamaica, a far-flung tendril of the New York subway 
system, is home to an odd assortment of people, its temporary tribe 
consisting of two primary demographics: downtrodden blacks and Hispanics, 
returning home to their neighborhood, and suit-clad while people, en route 
to JFK or perhaps Long Island. The tension in the train is palpable; the 
minorities ooze feelings of resentment and oppression, while the whites 
nervously try to encircle as much of their stuff as possible with their 
inevitable coat.

This détente goes on for quite some time, both sides too scared to do 
anything particular about it. At Sutphin Avenue, the whites get off, and 
both tribes breathe a sigh of relief. The minorities exhale and slouch and 
banter, while the majority faction, not so aptly named on this train, 
scurry towards the haven of the upper-middle-class that awaits them in 
Babylon or the Hamptons or Kansas City. 

In the E train, the whites huddle together, and, walking the block and a 
half to their connection on a more upscale train, they travel in packs. 
They don't look around. If they were dropped here one by one, they 
wouldn't last long, but in a herd they have just enough equally scared 
people around them to feel at least a touch of confidence. In the E train, 
they feel hunted, always looking around for other prey to group with; at 
Sutphin, they retain the solidarity-in-numbers as they migrate to their 
watering hole.

The odd thing is that the minorities don.t feel like predators.  They are 
so used to being prey, as they are in their everyday lives, that the 
transition to being the majority faction leaves them shell-shocked; while 
they could easily surround and impose their culture on the white people, 
it doesn't happen. Everyone sits in silence as the train speeds underneath 
Queens Boulevard, counting down the stops until Sutphin. Everyone has an 
uneasy stare, except for the people in the Dentyne ads blanketing the 
walls of the subway car -- white people staring into the fishbowl, peering 
at their compatriots and antagonists, safely behind the laminate 
separating them from reality, secure in the knowledge that only two of 
their three dimensions are in this Cold War of a subway. 

The trip isn't long. From Manhattan to Sutphin is maybe thirty minutes. 
It's thirty minutes too long for comfort, though; thirty awkward minutes 
of silence as a few people exit the train to be replaced by understudies. 
Everyone is huddled in their own personal black holes, hoping that their 
Schwartzchild radius is big enough to keep the enemy at bay.  The only 
sound is the whir of the subway against its tracks, the mechanical 
cloppety-clop which is a throwback to more horse-drawn times. 
Cloppety-clop, cloppety-clop.