Last summer, I was approached by a man who proceeded to follow me down the block, to the corner store. He admitted to having watched me for years and asked me to go with him to a hotel.
This was our first interaction.
I told him I was not into men. This wasn’t entirely true, I’m bisexual, but it’s one of the more accepted responses around here, or so I thought because his response to this was —
“And no one can change your mind?”
I was seeing red because of the level of disrespect he had just shown me, but there was nothing I could do. I didn’t want to risk getting hurt or killed. So I told him “no”.
Did I mention he was 45 years old to my 27 (at the time)? I was young enough to be his daughter, of which he had five, and two of them were older than me.
Did I also tell you that he then went on to ignore what I had just told him only to tell me that he wanted to “get my p — — wet”?
He took my sexual preference as a challenge.
And that’s the problem with the men in my neighborhood — and most men, period. They think everything is a damn challenge. They think every genuine expression of disinterest is a chase.
They’re not taking “no” for an answer.
When they do it’s only to pretend they are so they can manipulate, gaslight, pry, and pretend their way into whatever they want instead. This is life every time I leave my house.
And my story isn’t rare.
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Gangstalking Is Taking Place in the Streets
Men navigate in packs and move in on women like open targets
Often, I’ve noticed women tend to walk alone (or with one or two other friends). Although I see this is a massive sign of strength and leadership to be able to walk alone, this assists us in being easy targets.
If one man approaches you and doesn’t get you, another one will get retaliation for his friend — and to get his rocks off too. Sexual harassment is a way of life in the black community. This isn’t speculation, I live here.
I know what I’m talking about.
I’ve had men follow me home for simply saying hello to them in response to them saying hello to me. One man literally walked up to me on the street and started holding my hand, without saying a word. He was a complete stranger.
I’ve had men approach me without saying a word, as they held their phones out with it open to the contact section — implying for me to put my number in it. Without any introduction.
I’ve said hello to men who said hello to me first, only to be followed home as a result of having manners. I’ve had men literally walk up to me and ask for sex. The vast majority were also old enough to be my father. And in virtually all cases, I had to grin and bare it just to make it home alive.
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Being Nice to Men Is a Survival Strategy
And it’s been keeping many women alive while also making us easier targets
Living in a rough neighborhood, you learn quickly that sometimes being nice is just as vital as being assertive, or “tough”.
As women, we often have to take the nice approach out here, to survive men who do not know how to handle —
- boundaries
- rejection
- the word “No”
Sometimes, we’re forced to lie
Sometimes we are forced to pretend that we’re gay or disclose that we are, even though it’s nobody’s business, the way I felt I had to do with that man in the store.
Sometimes we’re forced to pretend friends or family members are our spouses because men will show more respect to another man as if we are his property. And not our own person.
I’ve had to pretend friends of mine were men I was dating to keep other men off my back or to stop them from following me. Just to get men to leave me alone because if I tell the truth, that I’m not interested, I’m pressured.
It’s as if standing in our own power, as our own women, simply aren’t enough — because it’s not. “No” isn’t good enough for them. They ask “why” as a result, as if “no” doesn’t have its own meaning. As if “no” isn’t a full sentence.
There’s a reason it is the single most powerful word in the English language. This is why using it becomes so dangerous when it’s against a man. Men love power. Especially, when it’s over women.
And especially in the black community.
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Black Women Are Living in Suppression
Photo by Raphael Lovaski on Unsplash
Because we aren’t allowed to say “no” to black men
When we tell men “no”, and there are many ways to say “no”, it shows that we as women are aware of our autonomous rights.
It means we’re reclaiming the little control we do have. This is offensive to these men because they cannot handle us maintaining our own control over ourselves. When we tell them no bad things happen.
Back in 2011, I was brutally raped on the staircase of my building for resisting an ex-boyfriend’s advances after we broke up. There have been women stabbed and shot for doing the same.
I’ve sat and thought about how we fight for the lives and rights of black men against white police officers, as black women, and I always wonder when we’re going to draw a very painful correlation —
Many black men terrorize the women of their own community the way white male cops terrorize them.
This makes me look at my own community and wonder,
Is it because white men rule the world that black men are making up for their lack of power by imposing on black women?
Think about it
In society’s totem pole black women come last — behind the black man. We are counterparts but we are not equal. Why?
Because we are still women.
And they have been overcompensating for their feeling of powerlessness by placing black women in positions to suppress themselves just to survive. Why else would they need to control our autonomy, unless they felt unable to be powerful without it?
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This Is Why Black Women Are So “Angry”
And why the “Angry Black Woman” label is extremely problematic
As a black woman, I can honestly tell you that many of my counterparts are way too aggressive towards us. They are overbearing and overwhelming to a detriment.
Still, we are forced to take the “nice” (or silent) approach to stay alive — angrily alive. Until we eventually become the global stereotype we never wanted to be, the one we have to fight bitterly not to become —
“The Angry Black Woman”
But here’s why this stereotype is problematic — because it’s dismissive. It gaslights the pain and suffering that’s causing many of the women within my community to embody it. Of course, we’re not smiling when you see us in the streets.
Smiling is a sign of friendliness and these men will take it as a means to approach us quicker. We don’t want to walk out the door with an attitude, but we know what’s coming.
So, of course, we’re walking the streets with a chip on our shoulders. Often, a chip that only appears once we walk out our front doors because we know the harassment we’re about to encounter, repeatedly.
- the endless interruptions
- the demeaning comments
- sexual advances
- getting followed
- constantly being approached everywhere we go
Who the hell wants to anticipate sexual abuse as soon as they go outside, and be right about it every time?
Would that not make you angry?
To constantly have to tolerate men who feel it’s their right as a man to touch us, without even knowing us.
Men who would take the life of other men for doing the same thing to them — or their daughters. Neverminding the fact that we are daughters too.
We are —
- daughters
- mothers
- sisters
- lovers
- friends
- family, and most importantly
- humans
And that’s when we realize that no matter what we are, no one cares about the black woman. We have been forgotten. We are unsafe because we are constantly in danger. And our biggest threat is our own kind.
And we have been forgotten.
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Black Women’s Lives Matter
The biggest threat to the black woman isn’t a white police officer
Black men worry about being stopped, followed, grabbed, or .. worse by white police officers. And we as black women have to worry about receiving the same injustices from them.
We’re the ones being watched for —
- days
- weeks
- months, and even
- years
until our stalkers decide to pursue us.
We are constantly in danger, anticipating the outcome of these approaches is equivalent to black men being pulled over in their cars by the police — we don’t know how it’s going to end, either. We just hope it doesn’t end with us in a bodybag.
The biggest threat to the very same men terrorizing us is other men with egos equally as big. This is ironic because the cops around here actually aren’t that bad, to be honest. In fact, these police offers show us more respect and give us more freedom than the black men in our neighborhood.
I can say this because we have white male police offers who stand on our block nearly every single day, not bothering anyone. And just a few feet away from them are the black men who hang on that same block all day every day, selling drugs and openly harassing women.
(And we’re supposed to believe you’re scared, right?)
Considering how much of a threat they make the police out to be you would think they’d stop perpetrating the same actions within their own community, but that is not the case — at all.
They thrive in the power they exert at our expense, creating an atmosphere where the same things black men live in fear of every day when it comes to white police offers, are what we live in fear of when it comes to them.
Yet, even with both potential threats to our lives on the same block, I am only a consistent target of one. I am only terrified of one and I am tired of being hunted every time I leave the house. It happens all the time and this is how it’s always been, I’m just telling one of many stories. This story is not rare.
But this one is mine.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Caique Silva on Unsplash
The race angle was a detraction for me, a white woman, who could otherwise completely relate. I clicked on the link because I know the exhausting dynamic well. Instead of being about black women, it could have been more correctly about “Women.” When physical strength trumps morals and awareness, color really plays no role.
Interesting that I got dinged for expressing my experience. Apparently, it was ‘less than.’ Because I can relate but I’m not black. That says a lot.
You expressed my thoughts exactly. The whole dynamic is true to women everywhere and after reading a few paragraphs with no mention of race, the addition of the race angle was rather jarring and I think detracted from an otherwise well thought-out piece. Race certainly needs to be talked about as a factor in a lot of problems, but I just don’t think it was necessary here, nor is it the root of this particular problem. The issue being talked about is something women of all races and classes experience everywhere, to varying extents. It’s an unfortunate truth of the… Read more »