Was this (white) woman acting in a unreasonable/racist fashion n this situation?

In My Humble Opinion
1

No hypothetical today, chilldren, but rather an actual situation from my past. I may have told this story on the boards before, but I’m too lazy to check. Anyway, here’s the sitch:

I’m a largish black man. When I was in my early 30s I rode the bus to and from work. Living in downtown Memphis, that meant going from my apartment to the North End terminal and catching the bus there, and doing the reverse to come home again. Sometimes I’d walk to and from the terminal; sometimes I’d take the trolley, depending on how lazy I felt.

In Memphis in the early 2000s, bus riders were overwhelmingly black. A white rider always got noticed, and young white female riders occasionally got harassed by young black men. One fair-skinned ginger damsel of my acquaintance made a point to always sit by me–partly because she knew I wouldn’t harass her, and partly because I was big enough so that no single young man would bother her if she seemed to be with me. “Even when you’re wearing a suit, you look kind of like a smart thug,” she said once.

One autumn Friday, I was coming home from work at around sunset. It was slightly chilly but not rainy, so I got off the bus a little early and hoof it. I debarked from the rear door of the bus. Another passenger–a young white woman–got off at the same time, but from the front door; I think we were the only people debarking. I don’t believe she realized that I had gotten off at the same time she had, as I was behind her. I was wearing a suit and tie, as is my wont, along with an overcoat and a cap, and was carrying a leather shoulder bag.

We both headed southward. It so happened that no one else was walking on that street at that moment. Presently I noticed the young woman noticing *me *walking behind her. I smiled in what I meant to be a non-threatening fashion. She smiled wanly in return but also turned around hastily. I could tell she was nervous of me, and I didn’t want to frighten her, so I turned down a side street so she wouldn’t see me the next time she looked behind her. Unfortunately she seemed to have a similar thought, for when I turned south again she was in front of me again. Once more she looked behind her and saw me behind her. Clearly afraid now, she quickened her pace. Striving not to be a jackass, I turned down another side street and broke into a job long enough to passs, reasoning that when if she next saw me in front of her I 'd seem less menacing. After a bit I turned south again and decided to buy some overpriced groceries at Walgreens. And there I saw her AGAIN. As soon as she saw me she put down her basket and beat a hasty exit. Though ready to leave myself, I lingered so as not to seem to be stalking her.

I didn’t see the young woman again that day. The following Sunday morning I was heading out for the day and was waiting for the elevator. When the door opened SHE was there, and when she saw me she jumped back. Fortunately she was not alone in the elevator, and the other occupant (an older white woman) knew and could vouch for me. The reason I’d seemed to be stalking her was that we had the same destination; she’d only recently moved into the building and didn’t know me.

Do you think this young woman was unreasonable in her reactions to me? Racist? Prudent? Silly? Whatever you think, why do you feel that way?

2

I’d say racist. You gave her no reason to think you were a threat.

3

I’m a largish white guy, and I’ve had similar things happen (although never quite as extended as your example). It’s impossible to say for sure how much your race played into her reaction, but things could have played out identically if you were whiter than Perry Como.

4

I wouldn’t go quite that far. Perhaps she thought you were stalking her for other reasons.

5

A big dude - no matter what color - on an otherwise deserted street is likely to seem threatening to a young woman. Especially if she watches a lot of bad (or even good!) movies.

6

Her reaction sounds reasonable. You were (accidentally) following her and it makes sense that this would be unnerving.

7

Yeah, if that happened to me with any man I’d be a little freaked out. Not, you know, SUPER freaked out, but it wouldn’t be because you were black.

8

Skald, I have olive skin, I’m average sized, but I have long hair and a beard, plus tattoos. I have had all sorts of folks, women and men, clearly run the other way out of a visible desire to avoid the “Hippy Biker, ‘the Rock/ Danny Trejos’ type rough-guy”. Where they racist? I can pretty well guarantee almost none of them could determine my ethnic background, but they avoided me all the same. Some folks are just timid and easily intimidated. It’s not always about race.
I’ve been denied service in bars and restaurants as recently as a few years ago based on my appearance (not my clothing or behavior). Yes, that was in Las Vegas, the most blatantly arrogant place on Earth … and I’ve been to France more than once, so I think I know arrogant.

9

If I kept encountering a guy in such a persistent fashion, I would probably be nervous too. I would probably cross the street and keep an eye out to see if he crossed after. (Then cross back if it was possible he just had to cross anyway. If he crosses again, it’s Problem Time.)

10

First off, can I just commend you for being so kindhearted and for putting aside your own feelings in the moment to work so hard to assuage that woman’s fear? I think that is so remarkable and it really says so much about your character. You are a good person.

I think it’s fair to say that your race was a factor in her fear. I think FAR more than that, though, was the fact that you seemed to be following her. Her initial response-- to smile lightly and keep walking, is exactly how I react to that situation, and it’s my response regardless of race. She didn’t really start to panic until you kept showing up behind her, and even when she did she never did anything like scream and mace you. I admit, if I’d gone into a Walgreens to get away from someone I thought was following me, and turned around and saw the person there, I would have lost it.

Honestly I feel like you unintentionally following her and the fact that you are a large man was by far the largest factors in her behavior. But you know, I’m a white lady. I’ve never experience racial prejudice. And I wasn’t there. If you feel like your race was a factor, I believe that it was, because I know there are subtleties to human behavior that I’ve never seen and do not recognize.

I think you handled the situation with absolute kindness. You would have been well within your rights to keep walking behind her, or to shoot her a dirty look, but you chose to take the high road. I know this has probably occurred to you, but it’s very possible this woman had been recently assaulted, or had a friend who’d been recently assaulted. I cannot imagine how hard it must be to live with being treated with suspicion all the time because of your size and gender, and the color of your skin, and it must be so hard to always try to be the bigger person. I know there are probably reasons beyond empathy you act like this (for example, the burden of suspicion would be on you had she decided to make a scene) but still.

This whole story really underscores a big societal problem. I strongly believe you should have the right to walk through your neighborhood without being treated like a criminal. It’s dehumanizing and hurtful and just plain wrong. I also really strongly believe that women who feel vulnerable and afraid have a right to take steps to protect themselves, without worrying about the potential rapist’s feelings. I have spoken to rape victims who kept quiet and went along with things that made them uncomfortable because they didn’t want to make some guy feel bad, and it turns out he used that to isolate and then rape her. How do you balance these two issues? Isn’t it wrong to ask men, black men in particular, to act harmless in order to pacify women’s unfounded fears? Or is it wrong to say those fears are unfounded, when rape occurs so regularly?

I just don’t know the answers. I don’t think you had an obligation to act the way you did, but you did it anyway. Hopefully your exceptional behavior will help her to be less afraid in the future. And hopefully if she is, the next guy won’t use that as a pretext to hurt her.

11

How freaked is a little freaked?

Look at it this way. Let’s consider the four actions she did to express fear:

  1. Turning around hastily the first time she saw me, when I smiled at her.
  2. Quickening her step when she saw me behind her the second time (after I presumably had seemed to disappear, from her POV).
  3. Abandoning her shopping and fleeing when she saw me in the Walgreens.
  4. Flinching and screaming when she saw me at the elevator a day and a half later.

Which of those would you NOT have done?

Incidentally, I don’t think she was being racist necessarily, and I think I made a mistake in how I handled things. Smiling at her, in particular, was an error. I was trying to be reassuring, but I can easily understand how she read it as “expressing sexual interest in creepy way” and next thought, “Damn, I wish cell phones were ubiquitous already, or that I lived in Metropolis.”

12

I’d split up her reactions between racist and non-racist, with a caveat (explained below)

This was racist of her, on the surface. She saw a black guy behind her she didn’t notice and it was dark and felt unsafe. However, the caveat is that we don’t know for sure what was in her mind, and she simply could be afraid of:

  1. Men
  2. Large men
  3. Anybody following her
  4. That its dark and you’re a stranger

That being said, the rest of the decisions she made trying to avoid you (turning down a side street and leaving the Walgreens) does not strike me as overtly racist. Coincidentally, you just happened to appear behind her or at the drugstore, so it would seem to any reasonable person that you were actually following her

Then again, if you were a little old white lady with a walker, she may have ignored you even if she thought you were stalking her, unless your walker had knives taped or it or a beating cow’s heart

13

That last sentence isn’t true, of course. :wink: But I am a person with multiple sisters, and I remember thinking, “You know, that could be the Currently Littlest Rhymer in front of me.”

That last sentence is ALSO not true. Probably. I could be wrong. I’m wrong at leats 15 times a day.

As i mentioned this was my neighborhood Walgreens, where I shopped all the time; she, on the other hand, was new. I got greeted by name every time I entered the store, and that day was no exception. I think if she’d called for the store manager or security, their reaction would have been like my upstairs neighbor (the old lady in the elevator): something like, “Don’t worry, that’s Skald. He’s evil, but now,you know, EVIL.”

Actually I would say I had an obligation to act as I did. I may not be a Christian but I still believe in the Golden Rule, and in this situation I interpret that as “Do unto this strange woman as I would want another guy to do unto my baby sister.”

14

I’d give a woman alone on a street in the dark (or impending darkness) the benefit of the doubt. I mean, you kept turning up, wherever she went. You knew, and I know, it was just a wierd happenstance, and you were actually trying to avoid her (clearly, you were going above and beyond in your attempts not to freak her out), but it certainly wouldn’t look that way from her point of view.

It was not entirely unreasonable of her to draw the conclusion that you were following her. You weren’t, of course, and you had no bad motives whatsoever, but she couldn’t know what you were thinking.

So maybe she was a bit silly, and maybe she overreacted a bit. And who knows what bad things had happened to her in the past?

Or maybe she is in fact a racist. There’s no way to know.

15

A lot of women are simply fearful of male strangers in general, presumably because of events from their past; maybe it’s “sexism” more than racism.

16

I disagree; if you do a search on threads here where people recommend the book “The Gift of Fear,” and this is just about exactly the situation where people say listen to your gut. In this case, her gut was wrong, but she erred on the side of caution.

I agree with those saying it isn’t racism but a form of sexism.

17

This. I’m a skinny white dude and when I was younger I had similar experiences, granted I was pretty scruffy looking as a 20 something :smiley:

18

Um, you didn’t mention that first time around… not that it really changes much. I don’t think she was being racist as much as she was being sexist… if you were a largish black woman, I don’t think she would have had a problem.

FWIW, I, a medium-sized white guy, have received this type of reaction in similar circumstances, so I blame it on sexism. Or beardism.

19

Yep. If I’m concerned that somebody might be following me with nefarious intent, I’d find it far more reassuring to glance back and see them looking blindly past me, like they haven’t even noticed me. If they not only meet my gaze, but also smile, that implies to me that they’re trying to engage with me personally in some way, maybe get my attention and draw me into conversation. Under the wrong circumstances, I can imagine myself reacting more or less exactly as she did. In her case, I’d wager her reaction had at least some racial component, just because, you know, people. But for me, and for a lot of women, all that would matter is that you’re a dude.

Sorry.

20

I’ve accidentally “followed” women when we’ve been heading the same way a few times, and noticed some were clearly aware of and uncomfortable with the idea of a strange man following them. I wouldn’t think for a second that her reactions were unusual for any kind of man appearing to follow her.

We have no way of knowing if it was racist or not. All kinds of things might be, or might not be. What we think her actions mean probably says more about us than her.