As if my readers needed another reminder (and they might, because they may be new!) I am half-black, black passing, and NOT-WHITE. I grew up in a predominately white suburb, and it was weird. Then I went to Chicago for my undergraduate education.
Something even weirder than growing up around a lot of people who looked nothing like me happened when I arrived in Chicago. Something that I had never really experienced before, but would effect me until I left. I was harassed. I was constantly hollered at on the street. While waiting for the bus, while on the bus (ditto for the el). I was harassed in bars, at clubs, in line at Walgreens, while smoking lunch-break cigarettes. Dude upon thirsty dude approached me, or yelled from a car. Bruh after can-you-fucking-not bruh brushed against my ass, cornered me in public, or pulled my headphones out. I experienced a never ending cascade of comments on my body, my clothes, my fucking not-smile (I’M ON THE CTA WHY WOULD I BE SMILING, SRSLY??), my hair. It did not stop.
Sound familiar? Watch this video.
This shit happened to me on a pretty reg basis until I moved back home where pretty much everyone is white.
What the hell is that about?
Let’s have a fit about black dudes, power politics!, and street harassment.
Countless bloggers have taken issue with the video I linked above. Accusations are flying on the twitterverse that the video unfairly and disproportionately represents men of color harassing a (gasp) white woman. The director himself acknowledged that many of the white cat-callers were edited out of the video.
It is absolutely true that men of all colors and creeds harass women. I’ve witnessed it myself: Sketchy white frat bros in salmon shorts (3pts) screaming at girls across campus; creepy old white dude at Sprouts hobbling after a cute hippy girl; Nasty, rich, yuppie white dudes at American Junkie (never go to that fucking bar holy hell) in Chicago creeping, CREEPIN’ ON EVERYTHING THAT MOVES; it goes on. I can say and list just as many examples for Black or Hispanic dudes.
In my experience, however (AND I SAY THAT LOUD AND CLEAR: IN MY OWN GOD-DAMN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE), I have almost exclusively been harassed by men of color. This may simply be due to the fact that I spent all of my time in Chicago living on the south and south-west sides of town, where the male population is mostly Not-White. That may also be because white bros don’t find my ethnic-ass body attractive enough to scream about in public (more on that later).
I do want to talk about some shit that makes people uncomfortable though. It makes people squirm, it brings up thoughts and accusations of racism. Lots of women ask: Why are black dudes so thirsty? Why does it seem that men of color (more so than white dudes) feel the need to talk to women, to harass and bother them in public?
It’s really, actually, not even about the thirst.
Part of that perception is societal illusion: It’s a trope in American society that Black men are hypersexual and dangerous. You see it all over media and it is engrained in our awesomely racist history. Black men are out to get your wominz. They want to rape your wominz. They want to kill your wominz. They’re comin’ and there ain’t nothing you can do but put them in jail for not really raping your women, lynch them for not really raping your women, or make ridiculous laws and not let them drink Coca Cola, or all of those things.
Part of that perception may (MAY) be true, and I think there is a good reason for it. That reason (like the reasons for all things, at least for most structuralists and post-structuralists) is POWER.
Power is that magical invisible thing that binds all people in society. It is completely pervasive. There is no escaping it. Power is given and it is also taken away. Power can be gained by socio-economic status, race, gender, hair color, eye color, height, weight, blahblahblah. Power can also be taken away by all of those things.
Power, okay? Everyone wants power. Feminists want power, Black people want power. I want power. You want power. We all want some sort of status because it means more control over our surroundings and a better guarantee of resources (if you want to pretend that’s not true write me a guest blog post).
Something I realized while living on the south side of Chicago is that a lot of people of color are completely powerless. They have no control over their economic situations (stupid high unemployment), their housing situations (sec 8 housing being closed down willy-nilly), their food situations (lol, no Target on the south side), their transportation situations (fuck the CTA, especially on the south side), their safety (gang-bangers, cops, etc. threatening life expectancy), and their lives. (Basically, it’s fucking called Chi-raq for a reason). These things are especially true for Black men on the south side of Chicago. It’d be a joke to pretend that Black men are afforded some of the same job and education opportunities as Black women. We are more present in Universities (marginally) and have better employment numbers.
So how does one (re)gain power? A really solid way to start is by making other people feel powerless. How do you do this? Well, you’ve got to look at what you’ve got left, especially once almost everything else has been taken away from you. For Black dudes, that one thing might be their bodies and their physical strength. They can use their bodies to intimidate others. A lot of those “others” tend to be women in public.
Now, I am not making excuses for ANYONE harassing women. The same power argument applies to white (and Hispanic) men who harass: they are feeling powerless, disenfrancised, perhaps low on self-esteem. They feel a need to reassert themselves, and the best way to do so is by a public display of intimidation. I repeat: I AM NOT MAKING EXCUSES FOR HARASSMENT, IT’S SHIT AND IT’S WRONG. I’m merely speculating, and trying to show that for (at least some) Black men, this is about lack of power, and a higher need to reassert it.
All men who harass in public have been taught (either explicitly or latently) that their bodies can exert power and intimidation over a female. This is disguised as sexually pursuing a mate. We all fucking know, though, that street harassment hardly leads to a woman finding her next boyfriend. It’s not an effective courting mechanism. The reason men do it is to gain power, and power only. That power is gendered and disguised in sex. It is threatened WITH sex, as men are (and probably forever will be) physically stronger than women (IN MOST CASES) and men can physically overpower women, ESPECIALLY in sexual situations. These men are taught that we (LADIES, FEMALES, VAGINA HAVIN THINGS) are objects moving through space that they can physically control. We are their pawns to move around in their stupid, convoluted power game.
I feel like this power argument is certainly evidenced by the violent response that street harassers have towards women who retaliate against them. I long ago gave up my passive acceptance of street harassment. I scream back, make faces, yell “FUCK YOU” and flip off many a man. I’ve also been followed down the street by cars full of crazed dudes, threatened with violence, and called a Stupid Ugly Bitch in response (I would like Stupid Ugly Bitch on a shirt, someone make it for me).
Who do men feel the need to control? Black men on the south side might see (again latently or explicitly) that Black women are making moves. We are getting our education, we are pursuing jobs. We are leaving them behind (single Black moms forever!!). Controlling Black women, through public intimidation and FEELING like control is being exerted over Black women helps Black men gain a sense of self-esteem and power. The same goes for wanting to control white women, who in some cases (SOME CASES) have more power than Black men. Intimidating them in public gives Black men an imaginary even-playing field. It doesn’t matter, Ms. White Lady, if you have a nice job, and cool apartment in Lincoln Park. The physical threat of my male body will surely put you back in your place.
White men probably (I SAID PROBABLY) don’t feel the same need to control Black female bodies. They could give a shit about us. We are not a threat to them, or their power in any way, shape or form.
In other words: Street harassment is a microcosm of our society’s racial, gender, and sexual politics. Through street harassment we can see who in our society has a lack of power and how those in our society with a lack of power try to regain it. We can see that women today (especially Black women, despite our strides in education and employment) still are the most powerless of all.
Ending street harassment is more than just recognizing that GASP LADIES ARE HOOMANS TOO AND WE DONT WANT TO BE BOTHERED AND FEEL SAFE IN PUBLIC (because yeah, it is about that, and I FUCKING DO WANT TO GO OUTSIDE WITHOUT ANYONE EVER TALKING TO ME PLEASE DEAR GOD LET THIS HAPPEN IN MY LIFE TIME).
It’s more layered and complicated than that. The politics of sex, gender and race can hardly ever be divorced from each other in America, and exploring street harassment is a good way to expose that and begin to unravel those complications. It does no good to yell “RACISM” and completely disregard the video above. There’s a reason why a SHIT TON of the men in that video are Black or Hispanic men, and that reason needs to be explored.
Bitch Fit 