Archives for August 2011

I finished hanging out with my friend today and we parted ways at the Safeway on Columbia Road in  Washington, DC. As soon as we went our separate ways, the harassers came out of the woodwork and I was harassed eight times! Since moving to a mostly-white suburb, the harassment I face has decreased tremendously. I feel that being a black woman in this mostly-white area makes me pretty invisible, so facing this much harassment was a shock.

The first four harassment encounters happened along Columbia Road, between Ontario Road and 16th Street NW.

1. A guy sitting outside of Crumbs and Coffee—in a Crumbs and Coffee uniform —said, “Howya doin’ ?” in a sexual tone. I ignored him.

2. I passed one guy who looked me up and down and said, “Hello, baby, how you doin’?” I ignored him too.

3. A third man also looked me up and down and said, “Hey, beautiful—man, you are beautiful!” He also got ignored.

At this point I called my friend’s phone to leave a message about how ridiculous all these men are and how it happened the moment we split up. I think the behavior of these men is laughable. During this, a fourth man sitting on the sidewalk looked at me. I assumed he heard me on the phone and would be discouraged from saying anything, but nope!

4. The fourth man said, “Hey, baby, lookin’ good, baby.” Once again, I ignored him. He got an attitude, and said, “Hey…hey!” in this tone that read how dare I have the audacity to ignore him.

5. I turned right onto 16th Street, and I heard kissing noises made at me from someone’s car.

I finally got to Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park, and I took the time to sit at the lower level of the park for a moment. I wanted to observe the drum circle, but I also wanted to clear my head before heading to the top level. The air looked dark and it looked like it was going to rain. I also saw men who seemed to be doing nothing but staring at me, so I moved away. When it looked like it was going to rain, the drummers started to pack up. I wanted to walk a few laps around the top level to clear my head, hoping that the rain wouldn’t start.

This is where the harassment went from laughable to scary.

6. During my walk, I passed a man who said, “God bless you, beautiful” and crap like that. I tried to continue walking and he kept saying garbage, and I felt I did enough ignoring for today, so I turned to confront him.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” I said. “I don’t need you telling me I’m beautiful. I’m not an object, I don’t like being talked to like that, and you need to respect women and leave women you don’t know alone.” I felt I was calm, cool and collected. The harasser wasn’t hearing that, though.

The harasser said, “I was just trying to bless you and tell you you’re beautiful—“

“I don’t need nor do I want you to say anything to me,” I said. “Leave women you don’t know alone.”

This guy goes from trying to flatter me (so he thinks) to aggressive.

“Don’t tell me how to talk to you,” he said. “I can say whatever I want.”

“When it comes to how someone approaches me, I WILL tell you how to talk to me!” I replied.

It went back and forth like that until he started yelling, “I’m trying to tell you something, I’m trying to tell you something!” Then he says “DO-YOOU-HEEEEEEEEEAR-MEEEEEEEEEEEE?” loudly and slowly as if he thinks I’m slow.

“Yeah, I hear you,” I say. “You’re so loud, the whole DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA can hear you!”

The younger guy who was with him tried to get him to stop, but he wouldn’t. And the younger guy even laughed when I made that comment about the whole of DC being able to hear the harasser.

“I feel bad that you don’t think highly of yourself,” the harasser said. He was trying to say that my not wanting him to say I’m beautiful was because I didn’t think I was beautiful. BULLSHIT! I know I look good—I don’t need the validation of my appearance by some strange man!

After more nonsense this guy said, “I’m sick of you. I don’t want to hear you anymore. Fuck you, bitch! Go away!”

When it got violent with those words, I had to take his photo to submit to the street harassment sites. (He’s the turd in the green shirt.) That set him off even more.

“Fuck you, bitch! I’ll take your photo too!” he said, aiming his camera phone at me. I think I turned my head in time and he took shots of my back, but who knows. I’m nervous of what he’ll do with my picture if he did manage to get it, but as long as there’s no “Harassers Fight Back!: Keep Harassing Women” site that harassers use, I should be fine.

This drama had gone on long enough, so I walk away to call Park Police. He followed as if he was going to try something. The younger guy looked nervous and left, though he wasn’t the one harassing me. “I’m calling the police!” I yelled, and dialed them.

The harasser continued to yell, “Fuck you, bitch!” and acted like he was coming closer, but as soon as he heard me say, “I need Park Police to come to Meridian Hill Park since there’s a man saying ‘Fuck you, bitch!’ to me and acting like he’s going to start something,” he went to his bicycle and rode off. Damn, I thought, but I did get his picture, although my phone’s been acting up and the photo is small.

The wait for Park Police was the longest ever, and I felt so alone.

7. I waited at the 15th Street entrance near the northern end of the park, and this SUV with two guys stopped. Both leered at me. I roll my eyes. When were they going to leave?

“You can leave now…damn!” I said. I thought rolling my eyes and copping attitude would’ve been the hint to drive off, but the driver asked, “Girl, need a ride?”

I went off. “No, I don’t need a ride—damn! Fuck off!” and I flipped them the bird. They finally drove off.

8. When I went to wait at the middle entrance on the 15th Street side, a man with dreadlocks looked me up and down (don’t these harassers do anything original?) and said, “How you doin’, baby?” This was the last straw.

“Don’t call me baby,” I said, in a steely tone.

“Wha—?!” he said. “All I said was ‘How you doin’?'”

“There’s a HUGE fucking difference between ‘How you doin’?’ and ‘How you doin’, baby‘!” I snapped. He also tells me “Fuck you, bitch!”

I was riled up. If the police didn’t come soon I was going to leave. I felt vulnerable, I was on edge, and I was defensive. I caught myself even snapping at a kid who looked in my direction. “Don’t think about saying a damn thing to me!” I said, putting my hand up in the “talk to the hand” gesture. He looked nervous.

After 20 minutes, an officer finally arrived, apologizing for the delay. I relayed the story of the sixth harasser and show him the photo on my phone.

“Can you zoom in?” he asks.

“Unfortunately that’s the largest it is,” I said. But I remembered something about this harasser that made it easier to identify him.

“He has a nose ring,” I said. Since the photo was small, it was hard to see that.

“He does?” the officer said.

“The photo is small but he does have a nose ring,” I said. “Like a bull’s.”

As soon as I said that the officer told me he knew who this guy was, and would try to find him. Whether he did or not, I don’t know, but at least he seemed to care when it had seemed like no one did.

I felt that this barrage of harassment today set off other things, and my mood was just dour for hours. It also didn’t help that I got caught in the downpour when I finally was on my way home. During the worst harassment at the park, I was hoping someone would ask me if I was okay and act as a bystander ally, but none of that happened. This was either entertainment to some or people acted indifferently towards it. I was alone and felt vulnerable. If I came off as an angry and crazy, I have every right to be. That type of harassment can do that to a person.

I know what family and friends are going to say:

“You shouldn’t have overreacted.”
“You shouldn’t have argued with him.”
“You shouldn’t have taken his picture.”
“You should’ve just taken it as a compliment.”
“You should’ve ignored it.”

They’re going to tell me everything I was doing wrong instead of what really needs to be said: “Those men shouldn’t have said anything to you and should’ve left you alone.” But regardless of the reaction of my family and friend, I wouldn’t change a thing I did today and stand by my original actions 100%.

What I hate about the harassers is how they’ll flip the switch. You go from being “beautiful” to a “fucking bitch” for not accepting their unsolicited and unwanted “compliments.” They’ll try to deflect the blame on you, like for instance, if a minority harasser’s advances on a white woman are rejected, he calls her “racist” to try to make her look like the bad one and him the saint. Or with what I said above, the harasser tried to make it look like I had “low self-esteem” and needed someone like him to boost it. Harassers are living in a sorry world of complete illogic.

When back in my neck of the woods, I walked the trail to clear my head and get all of the stress from the earlier incidents out of my system. When I was heading back towards home, a guy riding his bike said, “Nice outfit” to me and I thanked him. This I took as a compliment because 1. he looked me in the eye, not up and down my body, and 2. he kept it moving. He, unlike harassers, didn’t have an ulterior motive or wanted anything out of it. So to those who say, “Learn how to take a compliment,” trust me, I know how to. What harassers do is not complimentary, it’s sick.

As I said earlier, I now live in a mostly-white suburb where I am almost invisible. While I feel it curbs the harassment greatly, I don’t like feeling invisible and being written off because the color of my skin. But going to DC it’s the complete opposite—I’m a walking target for street harassment, and most of my harassers have been black and Hispanic men. In this story, 1,2, 4, and 8 are black, and 3,6, and 7 were Hispanic. (I didn’t see who was in the car in 5 that made kissing noises at me.) I hate that these harassers have me on guard anytime I pass a black or Hispanic man on the street. I hate that these harassers have me lumping in good black and Hispanic men with them because I’d rather be safe than sorry. These idiots are ruining it for everyone. And I hate being seen as property by the harassers who are the same race as me—black—who think they can say anything to me because of a shared race.

I noticed a few white women running laps around the top level of the park but did these men try to talk to them? I doubt it. I feel as if minority harassers are scared to do this to white women because they know action will immediately be taken to protect these women (save for a few minority harassers bold enough to harass white women in the way I mentioned two paragraphs up), but black women and other women of color are fair game to these sorry excuses for men and I’m sick of it.

After all that went down at the park today, I didn’t want to go back. It was not fear, but embarrassment, remembering how people either ignored my being harassed or thought of it as entertainment. I didn’t want to return to the park as “that girl.” But then I thought, I love this park, this park has more character than any of the bland parks where I live. I see diversity, art, culture, and beauty in this park. I would love to return and hopefully catch a drum circle not interrupted by the rain. The park didn’t harass me—these men did!

I don’t like living where I feel invisible, but I don’t want to live in a place where I feel harassed either. I simply want respect. There’s got to be a balance somewhere.

– Anonymous

Location: Various areas in Washington, DC (listed throughout the post) on August 21, 2-3 p.m.

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