Far too often, those with privilege forget about the oppressed. Intentionally or not, we are often left out or left behind. Use this helpful list to see if people in your life are about to throw you under the bus.
1. You are in a chokehold being dragged to the side of the road.
We would never want to assume ill-intent, but if someone has placed you in a chokehold and is dragging you to the side of the road it is entirely possible that they are about to throw you under the bus. If you are still able to breath, questions such as “What are you doing?” and “Why are you dragging me toward that bus?” may help determine the true nature of the situation.
2. You look up to see a fourteen ton public transit vehicle above you.
There weren’t any good photos of looking up from beneath a bus. Simply pretend this bridge is a bus for the full ‘underneath a bus’ experience.
There are many reasons you might end up beneath a bus. Unfortunately, however, the most common reason is that you were thrown there. Check your surroundings to see if it appears you went beneath the bus voluntarily or were, in fact, thrown.
3. The bus driver gets out of the bus, saying, “Wow, those guys really threw you under my bus. Please come out now.”
Once again, evidence of being under a bus is no guarantee that you were thrown there. Still, phrases like “those guys really threw you under my bus” provide tantalizing hints as to how you ended up with a bus on top of you.
4. You’re being taken to the hospital due to traumatic underneath-a-bus-related injuries. While in the ambulance, you hear a paramedic say “I’ve never seen someone thrown under a bus with such vigor!”
Make sure the paramedic is talking about you before leaping to conclusions!
5. The people riding the bus insist that they will come back for you as soon as they get where they want to go.
This is a more subtle indication that you have been thrown under the bus. Impatience with your status as ‘beneath the bus’ may indicate the people on the bus had something to do with how you ended up underneath said bus.
6. Any efforts to extract yourself from under the bus result in accusations that you don’t truly understand how public transit works.
Look at this map! It’s pretty complicated, right? If you really understood how public transit worked, you probably wouldn’t have ended underneath that bus in the first place.
