Someone and their gang pulled a knife on me as a kid when I was riding the bus forty years ago in a university town, but that doesn’t make what they did normalized, it just makes an anecdote. As it happens, though, that is quite normalized in the U.S., especially if you’re not white.

A lot of U.S. residents inure themselves to random acts of violence because they either feel helpless to change the societal contexts of that violence and/or because admitting that violence would require confronting the benefits of power exploitation vs. the drawbacks of racism, sexism, bullying, and bystanderism. That swarm of boys abusing a girl to enforce societal mores that benefit them to her detriment is a trope from Pleasantville. This isn’t some new or unknown thing. This is a standard-issue United States Lynch Mob that’s been known about for a century.

I’ve been upset about this for thirty years, which is when I first discovered this. Welcome to the shameful desert of the real. Sad that it took y’all so long to see it; but now you have a chance to decide a way forward. Circle the wagons and raise sheltered, and therefore weakened, children? Teach every family about this threat all the way down to the youngest that kids understand danger? Crossing guards that ride the buses and have safety whistles and self-defense training? Lobby your city government to shift policing dollars to transit safety officers? Lobby your regional government to shift road maintenance dollars to gang violence de-escalation efforts?

As you can see, it’s difficult to find a way forward that feels appropriately vengeful upon ‘those that hurt our budding flower’ while also having a meaningful impact on the quality of the future. Most regions would just try to defund bus service, which fucks over everyone except wealthy adults on time scales longer than ten years or so, because at least that ‘feels’ like an effective response.

Good luck.

> I’ve been upset about this for thirty years

Completely normal. Trauma at a certain level, unlike other memories and emotions, doesn't seem impacted by time. I'm sorry to hear what happened to you.

> that is quite normalized in the U.S., especially if you’re not white. / A lot of U.S. residents inure themselves to random acts of violence

This part seems to universalize the experience, though. What is the basis for it? Crime is at generational lows. I've used public transit in cities uncounted times and I have never seen a crime; that's what is normal for me.