Street Harassment and the Problem of WWF (Walking While Female)

I am writing this post in response to another blog post that I read. It was about street harassment, and it was a rather incendiary post, the language of which made me more than angry. While 99% of my experiences with street harassment have involved black men, I have no interest in using that fact to argue that black men are somehow more prone to this type of harassment, to perpetuate any racist stereotypes about black men. Unlike the woman in the other post, I think this is a problem that black men and women need to talk about, and wholesale accusing black men of being sexist assholes only prevents dialogue, and it obscures the problem. And this is a problem – a problem that has been talked about by feminists and women in general for ages. This is a problem that involves the way men are raised to view women and the way women are raised to accept certain behaviors from men. I'll say more on this in another post. Right now, I share my stories because I think the discussion needs to begin somewhere: why not with the personal? I share these stories because I think it’s time we talk about how oppressive it often is just to walk while female.

Some Spring Day in Downtown Springfield, Missouri - 2006

After locking my bike onto a rack, I cross the street. The street is typically empty around mid-day, and this day is no exception. I head to Mudhouse Coffee, ready to sit and do some hearty pleasure reading. Just when I make it to the other side, I hear, “Hey, hey, pssst!” I roll my eyes, thinking, “Oh, lord, leave me alone.” I turn around: this is probably my first mistake. “Yeah, come here,” says a black guy with a cap twisted to the left side, as he sits in the passenger side of his best friend’s car. Or maybe his brother’s car. Imagine how much I don’t care.

I offer a nod and resume walking. Then, I hear, “Come on, girl, how you gon do me like that?” Mudhouse is a block away, and I realize these idiots are going to creep beside me in their car until I make it to my destination.

This has happened a few times before. I was in high school in Little Rock the first time it happened, and I was out walking with my younger cousin who was visiting from Dallas. A car containing at least three guys pulled up, and two of them tried to holler at us as the driver crept at a slow pace. I tried to ignore them as they talked: “Yo, come on, I just want a number,” “You can’t give a nigga a number?” Before I knew it, my younger cousin turned to one of the boys, and yelled, “Boo nigga!” I almost fell out laughing. I almost felt bad for those boys. And either they were embarrassed or they thought she was crazy because they promptly drove off. I think I heard one of them mutter, “bitch” right before they turned the corner.

I’m not thinking about that high school moment as these dudes harass me in Springfield. I am thinking about how annoyed I am. I look at the boy who’s talking to me, and all I can think is, “Negro please.” Just imagine Pam from Martin, the TV show, talking to Cole. That’s the voice I have in my head.

Finally, I turn to the boy – he certainly wasn’t acting like a man, so I dare not call him one – and I say in as civilized a fashion as I can manage, “I am not interested, okay. So, you go on” – I actually wave my hand, as if to shew them away – “and have a good day.” I didn’t smile. I didn’t mean it nicely. I meant, “Go on, now, before I get really real with you.”

He mumbles something along the lines of, “For real? Not even a number?” I don’t reply. Before they drive off, he offers, “You have a good day too, then, Miss Lady.” And that is it. I never saw the boy again.

Some Summer Day in Downtown Iowa City, Iowa - 2009

“Hey, hey, hey, slow down Miss Lady,” says an older black guy, in his forties probably. He has a chipped front tooth. I wonder why they are always calling me “Miss Lady.” I guess it could be “bitch,” so maybe I should be thankful.

I am crossing the street in one direction and he is crossing in the other direction, wearing baggy gray sweatpants and an ill-fitting white t-shirt. This man actually switches directions in order to walk alongside me. It’s the same man who once sat right next to me on the bus and proceeded to pester me with stupid come-ons for all of fifteen minutes, while I proceeded to make him feel like an idiot, again in the most civilized manner I could manage. “You know I’m your number one fan,” he told me the first time he talked to me on the bus. When I told him that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard, that hopefully he was joking, he then explained that he’d seen me in the grocery store once and spoke to me, that surely I should remember him. I shook my head: “Nope. I remember faces. And yours ain’t one I’ve seen.” Then, I turned away to read my book. He continued yappering, and I essentially ignored him until he shut up.

This time, on the street, I waved him away, just as I’d done that boy in the passenger seat several years earlier. And, just like that boy, he quickly got the hint, said, “All right. I see how it’s gon be,” and turned in the other direction. He doesn’t bother speaking to me anymore when he sees me.

A Cold Day in May in Chicago - 2009

I am by myself on the University of Chicago campus, walking and taking in some of the neighborhood. The area starts to look a little sketchy and I take a turn onto a more pleasant looking street, where I find a coffeehouse. I get a soy vanilla latte and leave the coffeehouse. As I’m making my way back to the hostel on campus, this young black dude crosses the street to talk to me. He’s wearing a baseball cap, turned to the back and slightly sagging pants. He asks me my name and I refuse to tell him, but he just goes on, nicely: “Oh, I ain’t trying to be all up in your face or nothing.” I glance at him, trying to see what he’s about.

“I just wanted to catch up to you so I can tell you your style is hot. I like it,” he says. "I was telling my boy over there," he pointed back toward the corner where another similarly clad black man was standing, "and he was like, 'You oughta go tell her'."

My fro is standing high and I am wearing a light blue wool peacoat and wide flare (bell-bottom) pants. I probably look like I stepped out of a Shaft film. It’s late May and I am still wearing a peacoat. Thank you, Chicago, for your never-ending winters. “That's nice. Thanks,” I say to the man. He smiles, and as he stops to cross back to the other side of the street, he tells me, “Stay beautiful, sista.” I nod. I probably even smile a little as I say, “You have a good day, now!”

That last scene captures the majority of encounters I’ve had on the street with random black men. I wouldn't call what happened in that scene harassment. Maybe I didn't want to be bothered, but the man was respectful and kind. I have no problem nodding, smiling, or holding casual conversation with a stranger - so long as I'm not in a hurry. In fact, I like interacting with strangers. Makes me feel all connected to the world and stuff. But many women might consider what happened in that scene a form of harassment - a benign sort of harassment. While I wouldn't agree, I guess I can see where such women would be coming from. If you don't want to be bothered, you don't want to be bothered, and people should respect your right not to be bothered.

Like many women, though, I’ve had my share of run-ins with jerks, encounters more violent than the ones I’ve shared above:

• I spent second semester of my junior year in London. There, a dreadlocked light-skinned guy actually grabbed my arm in the middle of Piccadilly Circus one night and tried to make me drink from his bottle of Hypnotic. I shit you not. Although pepper spray was then illegal to carry in London - I only found that out once I left London - I was seconds away from spraying him. I must have hurled every curse word and hateful thing I could think of at that guy, as my friend dragged me away from him. I'm pretty sure I tried to spit on him.

• The first time I ever visited Chicago – junior year of college – I went with two white male friends, and when we ended up on a dodgy street at night, a couple of black guys tried to holler at me, yelling all kinds of tacky shit at me, like, “Damn, you fine as hell,” or “Damn, you a little skinny, but I like skinny women.” When I rejected them, they launched all kinds of obscenities at me, obscenities that mainly pertained to my being with two white dudes: “sell out bitch,” “cheap hoe,” etc. I ignored them and kept walking. Because it was my first time in a big city, it didn’t even cross my mind that their verbal violence could turn physical. Luckily, it didn’t. That same night, I was on the train with my two friends, when two black boys tried to videotape me and some random white girl on their videophone. They said some nasty, sleazy shit to me and that girl. The white girl looked utterly terrified. I, however, having already been thoroughly pissed off by the earlier encounter, turned and told the boys that I would fuck them up if they didn’t take that camera off of me at that moment. I know they could have hurt me, but I didn’t care. I’ve never been one to walk through the world fearful of men, letting them talk to me any kind of way. (It should be noted that my two friends didn't say a damn thing. They actually shushed me when I started going off on the two guys. I'm often amazed at how often men are complicit in the sexist-oppressive behavior of other men. Or else just too intimidated to oppose them.)

My experience with this problem – street harassment – has admittedly been more fortunate than others. Guys usually smile at me or else speak respectfully to me. And when I refuse to speak to them, they usually turn and find some other poor girl to antagonize. Maybe I have some sort of look about me that says, “I really ain’t got time for bullshit.” I don’t know. What I do know is that some of my experiences have been far from pleasant, and it pains me to realize that I have been lucky, that some girls receive far worse.

Back to the Future - "The Effects"

Before I begin this week’s portion of my series, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the upcoming one year anniversary, on September 24, 2010, of the beating death of Derrion Albert, and honor his memory. If you are not familiar with what happened, click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsrVfE0yuZI

Since September of last year when I first heard and sawof this heartbreaking and senseless incident, not a week (literally) has gone by and I not thought of Derrion. It is still hard to think about and almost emotionally overwhelming to watch. As many times as I am never at a loss for words, I cannot even fully express to you how my heart aches for him. When Derrion’s mother sent him to school September 24, 2009, I’m sure she did not expect that to be the last time she’d see him alive…and even worse than having to find out your child has died, the horrible manner in which he was beaten is unthinkable. I have no personal ties to Derrion or his family, or anyone involved, but the humanistic bond I share with them causes me to still grieve for Derrion as if he were my own son or brother…because in reality, it could have been.

I often contemplate what I could do to ease the pain his mother will always have; or, what influence I can have on an unknown child’s future to prevent him or her from participating in an act that exhibits such little regard for another human life. One year later, I have still not thought of anything sufficient enough to act as a mark of distinction and tribute to this Derrion’s life – but, as long as I am living and breathing, I will never forget him. My silent, lifelong promise is to one day honor him in a way that beautifully outshines his dim death.

It’s been a year –
To my heart, you are still dear.
Rest in Love & Peace, Derrion

Now, let us transition to our topic.
Perhaps, we can learn a bit about the effects of slavery on human behavior by this past current event. W.E.B. DuBois, American civil rights activist, sociologist, historian, author, and editor, once said: “One ever feels his twoness- an American, a negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” You may have never spoken it, and may even deny it, but many African Americans often struggle with their identities…

Not being ‘black’ enough..

Acting ‘white…’

An inability to be totally comfortable in any racial group…

This ‘double-consciousness,’ is a nasty little side effect of slavery. Now, that wasn’t on the warning label was it?

For those of you not familiar with double-consciousness, let’s liken it to this: it’s like being a sparkling, shining Mustang, but swearing to yourself you’re a fire red Corvette, and having people test [drive] you all day! Black people so often have to conform to cultural standards given by their peers, and at the same time, fit society’s distorted standards of what is right and proper, all the while attempting to fulfill our own perception of our personal identities . In a way, it is attempting to maintain the identity of two people at the same time. Talk about a balancing act.

But, how do these effects tie into the problem of past slavery?
Simple.

When one does not know who they are – they have NO PRIDE, NO PURPOSE. In general, African Americans have have a foggy sense of their history, mixed between a handful of familiar facts and faces given to us during Black History Month and classroom textbooks with noteworthy, yet omitted information. In place of a clearly documented and dazzling history, we have allowed ourselves to relegated to assimilate and accept a history that is not our own.

NO PRIDE, and NO PURPOSE equals NO PRODUCTIVITY. Even in business, when an organization has a shared sense of values and purpose, they are motivated to work together towards a common end. How can African Americans begin to expect to embrace each other’s uniqueness, when we have not even collectively embraced our similarities?

And, with NO PRODUCTIVITY, there comes idleness…and we all know where that leads…
While you reflect on the African American loss of pride, purpose, and productivity, take a moment to ponder this question…

“We’ve gone through the names – Negro, African American, African, Black. For me, that’s an indication of a people still trying to find their identity. Who determines what is black?”

– Spike Lee

On Being Black, Female, and Queer

When you first came out in college, you used to wonder what was harder: being black, being a woman, or being queer (specifically, bisexual). You quickly decided that your answer to that question would depend on the day someone asked you. Sometime later you decided that the question was useless and a waste of time. In your mid-twenties now, you’ve long realized that what’s hardest is being all three of those things.

You’re writing this post not to whine or call for pity but rather to add another voice to queer women of color, an identity and large group of individuals often unheard and overlooked in American culture.

You can’t say that it’s harder being black, or that it’s harder being a woman, etc. because, in many ways, it’s all situational. For instance, in a mostly white environment, your identity as a black person is on display and, subsequently, causes you significantly more stress, making you vulnerable to everything from overt racism to covert racism. Living in Iowa City, dealing with a mostly intellectual and college-educated crowd of northern white folks, you’ve encountered much less overt racism, although the sometimes constant barrage of covert racism makes you prefer the overt sort. It’s made you realize that perhaps, as Dave Chappelle said, you prefer racism that’s out and in the open, just so you know where you stand with someone upfront.

Your identity as a female obviously finds itself on display when you’re surrounded by men, when you walk alone at night and feel that oppressive fear for your safety. Yet you’re rarely very wary of walking alone at night if the area is well-lit, as you’ve always felt that you can probably handle yourself pretty well. You consciously carry yourself with an obvious sort of seriousness and strength, so as to prevent yourself from being viewed as an easy target. And that strategy has worked so far. During the few run-ins you’ve had, however, you’ve learned that going completely apeshit – all 13 curse words – usually works well, as far as getting aggressive men off your back.

For instance, one night you were out and about, heading toward your car, and some random guy came up to you and started trying to be aggressive. You happened to be wearing slightly provocative clothes that night, and this guy decided that meant it was okay for him to get all up in your personal space. He actively followed you for a block, until you turned around, faced him and released an abundance of swear words on him, beginning with, “What the fu@k is your fu@king problem?” He promptly mumbled some half-assed apology and turned and walked away, after you concluded by telling him you would fu@k him up if he didn’t walk away. Whether or not you could’ve effectively fu@ked him up is beside the point: the point is you would have certainly tried, meaning, this man would have been in for a serious fight. He understood that, and moved on.

On the other hand, your identity as a queer person becomes a problem usually whenever you find myself surrounded by conservative black people — or conservative people of any race. Not because black people are more homophobic. But because you’ve simply had more run-ins with overt homophobia from black people than from anyone else. However, typically, you surround yourself with open-minded folks, black or whatever color, so you experience very little homophobia, overt or covert, in your daily life. Iowa City is apparently the third gayest city in the country, so your experience with homophobia here is significantly lessened, so much that you forget that Iowa City is kind of an anomaly in that way. You only receive that jolt back to the reality of life outside Iowa City when you see threads on Facebook where people unleash all their homophobia unabashedly, or when you hear yet another story about your sister (who is married to a woman) and her trials with homophobic co-workers constantly plotting to make her life miserable on account of her sexuality. She is not one to hide her sexuality, and you don’t blame her. But it makes her an easy target to homophobic folks around her in good ole Little Rock, Arkansas.

While you don’t hide your sexuality, you don’t necessarily display it either. Furthermore, you tend to operate from the belief that your sexuality is your business and that you don’t owe anyone disclosure (besides a potentially intimate partner). Like your sister, you look ostensibly heterosexual to most folks. But unlike your sister you don’t have a wife, and, as such, you have the ability to pass for hetero, whether you choose to do so or not. Because you’re bisexual, you’re often dating men so no one assumes that you’re anything other than heterosexual. As far as dealing with homophobia, your life is significantly easier because of all these factors. However, you’ve had to deal with biphobia a lot from both heterosexuals and homosexuals. Meaning, you’ve had to deal with all those silly and oppressive commonly-accepted labels that people attach to bisexuals: confused, slutty, indecisive, greedy, potentially diseased. In other words, you’ve had to deal with the intense alienation and sense of inferiority that comes with being viewed that way by so many people. To be bisexual is often to feel that you have no real allies.

Each of these separate experiences (as black person, as woman, as queer) on their own only slightly capture the wholesale alienation that your identity as a black female queer (be it bisexual or lesbian) entails. To have all these separate experiences of alienation is to experience an alienation so severe that it is practically incomparable. The invisibility is unimaginably intense. You’re sure any queer woman of color (be she black, Latino, Asian, or whatever) will echo your sentiments on this point. It goes like this:

Many people of the dominant group inadvertently or intentionally dismiss your humanity on account of your color, so you try to align yourself with people who look like you, black folks in your case. But you find your humanity questioned by so many of them, on account of your sexuality – many of them dismissing queerness as a “white thing” and, thus, in their rhetoric inadvertently erasing the existence of queer people of color. So you try to align yourself with queer culture so as to find some respect and community, but you quickly realize that the queer community is most often not only white-oriented but male-oriented, not to mention anti-bisexual in large part. Nonetheless, you – black, female, and queer – find your identity dismissed at every level.

In summary, you find yourself made invisible – within white culture, within your ethnic culture, within gay culture. The luckiest of you manage to live in cities where there are thriving lesbian and gay communities of color. While you are not that lucky, you are fortunate enough to have been able to find a group of open-minded friends, most of them black and straight, who are not tolerant – you hate that word, as it implies that one is simply “putting up with” someone they believe, at heart, to be inferior on some level, as such still viewing that person as an “other.” Instead, these friends are human beings who in no way “other” you because of your sexuality. You and your friends are all simply people trying to keep it moving in this crazy world.

****

I’m writing this post because, as I intend to embark on a legal career and devote my energies to improving the conditions of African-American life, I have been thinking about how troubling it is to ally myself with people, half of whom hate or look down on me because of my sexuality. Few things hurt my heart more than being literally or rhetorically spat upon by people who look like me, simply because my sexuality happens to differ from theirs, because of something I simply can’t (and wouldn’t) change. I can deal with receiving hate (or belittling pity) from white people, but it truly hurts to receive hate from people I consider my own, from people with whom I share such a unique historical legacy. But, at the end of the day, none of that hate deters me from wanting to dedicate my life to African-Americans (be they queer or straight) in our constant struggle for respect and freedom in this country. Despite receiving all that hate, my love for my people never fades. And, hopefully, it never will.

Pictured above: Queen Latifah and long-time girlfriend Jeanette Jenkins; Wanda Sykes and her wife.

Back to the Future Series - "The Problem"

The last time we got together, we began dialoguing about the lasting effects slavery has had on America. As we continue, let's dig a bit deeper...

Before attempting to solve any problem, you have to first define it. Only then will you have adequate information to determine its effects and find a solution.

THE PROBLEM: "Mentacide"

For African-Americans, we have had to endure physical abuse - everything from hundreds of whips on our backs to our necks hanging in nooses, while swinging from trees - the likes of which society urges us to forget. As grotesque (and unwarranted) as these actions against the black race was, I am inclined to argue that the lasting mental effects slavery has produced are far worse than the temporary physical results. Carter G. Woodson, known as the Father of Black History, stated, "when you control a man's thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions." The most devastating impact slavery has had on African Americans is not physical, but rather, psychological. Centuries after slavery has ended, many African Americans are still mentally chained to the plantation.

However, as mentioned in my intro blog to this series, MENTACIDE not only affects African Americans, but also affects White Americans as well. How naive to think that we (blacks, whites, and other races) all live together, but are unaffected by the same things. The impact of how events affect us all can be likened to a city that is shaken by an earthquake. The rumblings of the earth show no favor in the foundations of the homes they shake, destruction of bridges and roadways, or lives they happen to take - but at the end of the disaster, the damage is undeniable. Just as a natural disaster can devastate an entire community, a social tragedy (such as slavery), can leave a society in shambles.

African Americans are bombarded with negative pieces of information that conveniently highlight our inability to...for lack of better terminology, GET IT TOGETHER - BUT, are our white counterparts as together as some would like to believe? In my opinion, the answer is simple. NO.


While many African Americans live in an irrational belief of inferiority and fear, just as many White Americans live in a state of superiority and denial. This flawed thought process on both parties' parts is directly related to the master/slave relationship blacks and whites had during slavery. The dynamics and resulting actions of this defective bond has been ingrained in all of our brains and behaviors over many generations...and of course, it will take more than one generation to reverse its effects.

Speaking of 'its' effects, that is the subject of our next conversation. So, let's meditate and let this marinate. Until next month, speak your piece...

"In order to liberate the [Black] mind, we have to change and fundamentally transform the consciousness of the [Black] individual." - Gershom Williams

This liberation applies to ALL minds.

Contact Ms Qui at: msquivive@gmail.com

"Back to the Future"

The Prelude

They say hindsight is 20/20, but in my few years of living, experiences have afforded me with clear vision on a few matters of life. One thing I am passionate about is ethics and fair treatment among all people, but I am particularly concerned with the African American race because well…let’s face it, I’m black.

Here recently, I have been especially observant and aware of subconscious attitudes and behaviors in America that I believe stem directly from the shameful stain of slavery. It is inane to minimize the significant effect the American enslavement of African Americans that lasted for hundreds of years has had (and still continues to have), and even more senseless to limit its effects to the mindsets and outcomes of only one race.

Over the next few months, I will begin a dialogue with you...a multi-part series, if you will, that will cover several aspects of the this topic from varying perspectives. My intent is not to complain, shame, or lay blame – but, rather, to present some realities and from them, collectively and positively more toward the future.

Until then, I welcome your comments, experiences, thoughts, and questions...

“The acknowledgement of our weakness is the first step in repairing our
loss.” – Thomas Kempis

Contact me at: msquivive@gmail.com