Street Harassment in the Ghetto

I look at a lot of street harassment blogs, websites, articles, etc.  All of them say that they will edit out or not post things that refer to the race of the harasser.  I notice that this does not apply when the harasser is white.  I can’t count the number of times I have seen something like “As a woman of color I was offended because of the racial aspect to it of when white men abused women of color.” Since this is my blog, I won’t censor myself in that way.  That is not to say that I, in any way, condone using racial slurs, but I feel that race does play a very important part in street harassment.  Not always, but a lot of the time.

I live in a mostly black and Hispanic neighborhood.  My dad is “white”, but my mom is Hispanic.  I have my dad’s skin tone and features.  Very few people peg me as part Hispanic.  Anyway, there is this one particular guy in the neighborhood who seems to single me out for street harassment, like it’s some enormous compliment.  I hate men who talk to strange women with that offensive familiarity.

I was coming home from my evening walk.  I was about to cross the street when I see him talking to a car that was stopped at a stoplight.  I stayed on the side of the street that I was on hoping that he wouldn’t see me.  I was half way down the block when I hear him say in this loud voice “Oh.  The white girl”.  Why are people in this neighborhood incapable of talking in a normal voice?  Why must everything be shouted?  Now it is possible that he was talking about some other white girl, but considering that I am one of the only white girls in the neighborhood, it was highly improbable.  Anyway, I get a little more down the block when he catches up to me and starts trying to talk to me about why I can’t say hi, if I have plans, why not, etc.  I tell him, without stopping that I don’t have plans because I don’t like people.  He says in this sleazy, slimy voice “Well people like you”.  I told him “Well then people can go f**k themselves” and kept walking.

This guy really pisses me off.  One time last week he was with some guy and he saw me and told the guy “That’s my girl”.  I smiled and said “No.  I am not”.  I humor this guy because one time I politely told him to stop referring to me as “Baby girl” and he got angry and started screaming at me.  He wouldn’t stop even though I was all the way down the block and then he started making a rooster noise.  What is that supposed to mean anyway?  It irritates me when he tells people that I’m his girl or whatever because they might actually believe it.  It offends me that someone might actually believe that I would go out with someone like that.  It’s not even a racial thing.  It’s that he is so repugnant.  One time he was talking to me and was essentially bragging that he had to go to court that morning.  Oh you charmer!  What I wouldn’t give to have a man like you as my boyfriend.

One time he came into this pizza place in the neighborhood as I was leaving, ordered a slice and told the guy he wouldn’t have enough money to pay for it.  The pizza guy got angry and told ghetto guy not to come in there anymore unless he had enough money. I’m guessing he had done that before.  Anyway, ghetto guy actually says “It’s ’cause I’m black, right?  It’s because I got nappy hair”.  Yeah, that’s it.  Idiot.

My ex boyfriend and his family have a store in the neighborhood, a few doors down from the pizza place.  Ghetto guy is banned from the store because when we were going out, A (the ex) told me that ghetto guy went in there and was being disruptive and belligerent, and when A told him to knock it off, ghetto guy started making derogatory remarks about Arabs.  A didn’t tell me what he said, but I think we all can guess.  A then told him to get the f**k out and never come into the store again.