By Dienna Howard
On September 20, 2013, I went outside to enjoy the weather and have lunch. I was having a stressful day and thought that being outside in the warm weather would give me a chance to clear my head. As I walked to Freedom Plaza, I passed by a man who appeared to be in his 50s who was with a group of people. As I walked past him, he said, “Hey, beautiful” at me. Whenever a man who is a stranger to me makes a comment like that, it doesn’t make me feel beautiful. It makes me feel tense, guarded, and uncomfortable that I’m being appraised by my appearance. He sat there looking at me as if he demanded a response.
“The only person I want to hear ‘hey, beautiful’ from is my man,” I said. “Not some random man on the street.” I’m not in a relationship, but if I were, that hypothetical boyfriend would be the only man I’d want to hear something like that from. And I made that comment because while I don’t like being seen as someone else’s property, oftentimes men who think like this only back off if they think that the woman is with someone else.
With this guy, it didn’t work. He went from calling me “beautiful” to calling me “ugly,” calling me a “bitch,” saying that I was “white” (because in his twisted mind, a black woman who wants nothing to do with a stranger who happens to be the same race is a “race traitor”), saying I was on Ritalin, and the ultimate insult, telling me that I “suck white man’s dick.” All this is the reason why I don’t accept compliments from men I don’t know – it’s never a compliment, it’s all about power and control.
When this happened, I lost my appetite and it was suddenly too hot to be outside. I managed to record as much as the incident as possible on a new phone that I was still learning how to use. I stood my ground, telling him that he should’ve risen up above being a black male stereotype, that he was a stranger to me and I don’t accept compliments from strangers, and that as many vulgar names as he used against me, I never did the same in return. Upset as I was, I did not stoop to his level. Another man who was with the harasser apologized on his behalf, though the harasser should’ve apologized. He even tried to get the harasser to stop it. The harasser told me that I should’ve said, “Thank you, brother” to him for a compliment that I never asked for. When the harasser looked like he was going to follow me, I called the police, though his friend begged me not to.
As I spoke with the dispatcher, I felt that nothing would come from the call. I wanted to move away from where the harasser was, but the 911 dispatcher gave me the impression that I should’ve stayed close by. I said that I needed to get back to the office, but there was no estimated time as to when the police would arrive. Knowing that I could risk being late to return to work and that the harasser would’ve been long gone by that point, I apologized for “wasting DC government resources” and told them to cancel the call.
I decided to head back to the office, the harassment adding to the stress that I was feeling prior to the incident. On the way back a man on the street tried to give me a rose (I noticed that he does not offer his roses to men who pass him by) and I said “no” a few times until he got the hint. Another man referred to me as “Boo-Boo,” a term that I find dumb and childish. I said that my name was not “Boo-Boo” and that he was to refer to me as “Miss or Ma’am.” He did not get the hint.
When I returned to the office, I was worn out. My body felt tense, my teeth were clenched, and I had to internalize that for the remainder of the day. I used the little power left in my phone to update my Facebook status about the lunchtime harassment, but didn’t get to see the responses until after work since my phone died and I don’t log onto Facebook with my work computer. I kept my office door (in my case, a curtain) closed as much as possible, feeling the hurt and pain of this virulent and violent form of verbal harassment, and needing to be alone as much as possible to work through it.
This incident was not the first time I was harassed, nor will it be the last. I have been harassed since I was 16 years old, before I knew that there was a word for it. When I was younger I did not have the strength or the tools to stand up against it. I remember being in my late teens or early 20s and riding the bus, and a man old enough to be my grandfather sat next to me. He started talking to me, talking about how attractive I was, and I chose to ignore it. He assumed that I was deaf, so he started speaking in a more lewd manner and speaking about me in sexual terms. Since I was “deaf” I couldn’t break my facade and had to sit there and listen to his sexual commentary, yet even if I chose to break my facade, I was too fearful to.
I have been followed by men in their cars, physically threatened (one man threw punches close to my face because I dared to ignore him and tell him why), chased, and called every sexist and racist name in the book. The older I got and the more harassment that I experienced, I became more angry and started fighting back. Sometimes I’d yell back. Sometimes I’d curse. Sometimes I’d take photos and videos of the harassers. I’d even take more benign approaches, like ignoring them, or calmly explaining why I don’t like their behavior, or just giving a simple “no.” Sometimes these methods worked, sometimes they didn’t. My reactions depended on my mood, the time of day, and my safety level. Even with the number of anti-harassment trainings out there giving the tools on what to do and say when encountering a harasser, there’s no one correct way to handle street harassment – it’s about what works best for a person at that moment. That’s why I have no regrets on how I handled the recent harassment – I don’t take back anything I said, I don’t regret calling the police, nor do I regret canceling the call. Other people will nitpick my actions, but the only person’s opinion that’s important on the matter is my own.
People tend to blame the recipient of harassment. When sharing my stories, I get lots of feedback from people who support me and who get it. But the voices of those who don’t support me and who don’t get it are louder. I cannot count the number of times I’ve been told that I bring upon my own harassment. It’s because I’m beautiful. Because I should’ve accepted his compliment. Because I’m petite and look like an easy victim. Because I’m too hard on men. It’s because of how I was dressed. It’s because I’m a woman. Or I get told what I should’ve done. If I ignore it, I get told that I should’ve said something, but if I say something, I get told that I should’ve ignored it.
I also deal with the erasure of my stories. When I talk about dealing with intraracial harassment as a black woman, white women will dismiss my stories with, “It doesn’t only happen to black women.” That’s obvious. But instead of just listening, they interject into black women’s stories and try to make it about them. I can only speak from my experience as a black woman facing harassment, and these women should let me have the podium. White women’s stories are not universal, and everyone should have the freedom to talk about being harassed without being dismissed. Being harassed is hard enough in itself, and they don’t need to add to that feeling.
I have no idea why I get harassed so frequently, and trying to figure it out would be like blaming the victim. What I do know is that it’s taking its toll on me – I can only take unwanted attention turned insults from random men for so long before it wears on my psyche. I’ve been called “bitch” so many times that people would think it was my given name. I try to act tough but it gets to me. I’m always guarded, wearing my shades even when the sun’s not out, listening to an MP3 player to tune harassers out, and have my harassment radar set on high. Harassment makes me feel anxious and uncomfortable.
I live in a world where people aren’t comfortable with letting me be because I don’t conform to a group mentality. My identity and opinions are erased and people try to put their own labels on me. It’s this same mentality that gets me labeled “cold” because I’m not big on small talk and happy hours. One where racist people write me off as being “stupid” because of the color of my skin. Or one where others call me “mean” because I’m not a delicate woman who grins like an idiot. It’s the same mentality that has a harasser calling me a “bitch,” because when I defend my right to walk freely in a public space, I’m no longer an object to him, but an individual with thoughts and ideas, and he finds that threatening.
I became a member of Arlington Independent Media late last year. AIM is a nonprofit organization that provides its members with the tools to create their own public access programming. Since taking many classes at AIM, I’ve become active in volunteering on different productions while getting the feel for their camera equipment. When I passed a certification test to use the organization’s field equipment I was ready to produce my own content. I thought that my first production would be short and lighthearted (I’ve always wanted to do sitcoms), but summer was starting up and I felt that that would be the best time to do a documentary on street harassment. I spent hours interviewing different people and organizations active in the fight against street harassment, had volunteer crews come out with me to tape different anti-harassment events, and inadvertently got video footage of my harassers in action (such as the above-mentioned harassment incident).
The documentary will be edited soon and won’t be out until the end of the year. While dealing with harassment is beyond tiresome, getting together to talk about it will never become old. We need to keep telling these stories and keep sharing these stories. And as worn out and mentally beaten as I am from being harassed so frequently, I will never stop fighting in the battle against it.
Dienna Howard is an artist who recently had work featured at the Target Gallery and Convergence, both in Alexandria, VA. Dienna is a volunteer/producer for Arlington Independent Media, and through that organization is currently producing her first documentary, one on the issue of street harassment.
