bus stop harassment Archives | Stop Street Harassment

There is this white homeless guy I sometimes see at my bus stop, and while he says crazy stuff nothing compared to what he said this morning.

The homeless guy asked people for money and mostly got ignored, but when a black man passed by and ignored him, this guy went off on this lunatic diatribe.

“Bro…Bro! C’mon!” He builds up from there.

“N****rs are always looking out for one another,” he says, and goes on and on using that word. Mind you, I’m a black woman, so I was beyond offended. I turned around and gave this man the nastiest look I could muster.

Then he says this: “Ma’am, n****rs can be white people too! I call white people n****rs too! What about your boy [President] Clinton? What about your boy Clinton?”

I had to tune him out at this point. Not only was he crazy, he was racist as hell and I didn’t know what he was capable of.

As he went on his n-word rant, I loudly said “Where’s the bus?” and did anything to tune his crazy ass out. Thank god the bus came seconds later.

That was not how I wanted to start my Monday morning.

– anonymous

Location: Bus stop in front of Court House Metro, Arlington, VA

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Many times when I talk about my dissatisfaction with women-only public transportation initiatives in countries like Japan, Brazil, India, and Mexico, created as a response to sexual harassment on public transportation, I cite the fact that it doesn’t stop men from harassing women at the bus or subway stop. Consequently, I believe that governments should focus on why sexual harassment is occurring and address those issues, otherwise people will still find places and ways to harass each other, regardless of segregated transportation.

Now in Central Jakarta, India, instead of addressing why harassment is occurring, the government is segregating people by creating two lines for women and men to stand in when they wait for a bus! This is the first time I’ve heard about a city initiating segregation in this way and for the purpose of helping to minimize crime and sexual harassment.

Interestingly, their bus system is not one where there is sex segregation on board. So men can still harass women on the bus. Men passing by the bus stop can easily harass women in the line and probably men in the male line can harass across the way to the women in line too, if they wanted. So I don’t see this as helping curb the issue of harassment.

What do you think?

N-word rant at the bus stop

Sex segregated bus lines