I read your blog about street harassment and your personal experiences and I just don't know where to begin with my response. I am a 26 year old Nigerian woman (who is also curvy) and I have lived in this country since I was 4 and have lived in Maryland since I 've been in America. I have experienced verbal and physical sexual harasment as well. One aspect of harassment that I have often recieved from black males, are automatic insults. Meaning that they insult me before anything else. I have had older guys and teenagers tell me to my face that I am ugly, without me saying or doing anything to them. I had a guy who appeared to be in his 50s (He appeared to be Carribbean) walk up to me and tell me that I am only nice looking because of my body. He them made gestures towards My breasts and hips and tell me that I am actually only averagE based on my body and start laughing. This was done in front of a group of several guys. When I was in college (I graduated from the University of Maryland) I was 'forunate' to have one class that a lot of the basketball players also had. I did not know them and did not want to know them, they would talk about me while blatantly staring at me in class. One day after class I was walking to my car and a group of them were behind me commenting about body. One of them, went ahead and said, she's just phat! Translation=ugly girl pretty body.
I had never done anything wrong to any of these guys, I didn't even knoW them. I have been walking down the street and happened to look up and a guy that looked to be in his late 20s looked at me and touched his nose with his finger (I guess he was making fun of my African nose. I did not know this person either. I was standing on an escalator one day when a I turned around and saw a guy that was probably in his 50 standing so close to me he was almost touching. When I confronted him he yelled at me, callimg me a bitch. Another time three teenage boys wanted my attention and when I wouldn't give it to them one made the mistake of throwing a coin in my direction, fortunatley it didn't hit me, but he still made a big mistake. I procceeded to run after him with a double bladed knife...this was when my tolerance level started to change. He ran from me and maybe I saved another woman from having him throw something at them. I've had my butt touched my guys I don't know. I've had guys follow me in stores and start talking to me about nothing. I even had a plainclothes officer lash out at me in a grovery store over nothing (he stated something about how I was standing in an isle listening to my music which I only really do so that I won't have to hear random comments from disrespectful guys). At this point I did not know this was an officer.
