The other day I was taking the train to Manhattan, and across the tracks from me was a young black man screaming at nothing. He had grey sweatpants that seemed to be soaked in some liquid—maybe piss or sweat. My knee-jerk reaction was to be a little scared. Why was this man screaming at nothing? Was he okay? Was he in the middle of some battle with religious psychosis or high out of his mind?

As I stood there, across from him, watching, my thoughts mutated, and for a second I realized that this man wasn’t just on a psychotic break, a drug addict, or homeless—he was a human. He was someone’s child, born, and someone placed the crown of destiny on his head. He grew up watching tv, complaining about school, dreaming of one day working, making his family proud, of getting nice cars, and buying nice clothes, owning a home, and having a family. None of that came true…or so I assumed from across the tracks.

Those assumptions—drug addict, psycho, homeless—were derogatory. They were shields chained together by lies to separate me from people who are just chasing their dreams: safety. It's easy to look at someone and say they're crazy, that there is no hope for them, that they're disgusting and scary—that they're nothing like me. The reality is, of all the danger in this city, the seemingly homeless person and drug addict from across the tracks is the least threatening person to my chance at a secure future. My struggles are more similar to this man, screaming at nothing in his soiled sweatpants, than to the suits in city hall funneling tax dollars to landlords and police officers but not into rehabilitation, education, or long-term affordable housing programs. It's easy when we're all alone, on some subway station trying to get home, to be attacked for the struggles we endure and the labels we carry: Dirty! Crazy! Poor! Why not "brother?"

I'm distracted, left alone to work a minimum wage job, be happy, pay rent, and manage the silent assaults of people looking at me from across the tracks, all at the same time. When I am left in that fraction of the night, laying in bed, suffocated by solitude, and all I can think is: What do I do? Why isn't there anyone to help me? This individualism that carves humans into objects, painted by those silly labels, forces me to hunt for survival. As I fight to live, in my fatigue, I listen to the voices telling me that this man across the tracks is dangerous. But I must remember: he is just as alone and scared as I am, and it is not his fault. I would probably be in exactly his position if I endured the same life and circumstances the cards gave him.

This is the world we inherited. A default of isolation, a default where you have your own house, your own food, your own clothes, but no one else. A world where you can live everyday thinking about yourself, a world where you worry everyday what your life will look like for the next day, the next month, the next year. A world where you can ignore the suffering of others, but can struggle to face your own.

This world has to be rebuilt. A world where a homeless person is denounced but the wealthy are given platform is not a world worth fighting to preserve. Just as the strikes and labor movements of the Gilded Age toppled wealth disparity and corporate monopolies, so can our generation overcome the epidemic of the U.S. owning class distancing itself from the poor and creating bigoted narratives to justify oppression.

I don't know who you are reading this. Maybe you're some high schooler working or some college student, or a parent or grandparent struggling to pay rent. Maybe you're an employee, working hard for your boss to make ten times your wage, or maybe you're retired. All I know is that you're looking to get by in life, and your struggles deserve to be listened to. We deserve to be hugged, to be loved, to be cared for, and to be seen in our struggles as humans, not danger.

We have an opportunity to step up for one another, to unite, and uncrown the narrative that the man across the tracks is more dangerous than the men creating this divisive narrative. Share your story, read others' stories here at the Social Mobility Journal, and remember that there is no power like the power of the people, united.