A few hours ago, when I left my new apartment for dinner at Heritage India (Connecticut Ave), rain was escaping the night sky with such fury and speed, my golf umbrella was barely adequate and my mukluks were soaked. They are lined with sheepskin, which is now wet and disgusting. My toes are miserable. I’m barely cognizant of this though, because I’m on the phone, having the most important conversation of my day. I’m so involved with this voice, I barely notice the mile which I’ve walked uphill, the road I’ve made a right turn on, the periodic hordes of people on Adams Morgan’s 18th street, on this dead-because-it’s-wet-and-miserable night.
I should be at my new home, snuggled in my, um, Aerobed, but I have no internet access yet, so Tryst (a much-loved haunt of our Manish’s) has gone from third-place to first place in my life, for the moment. I don’t want to go inside and be the idiot on her cell phone though, so I’m hunched over my umbrella handle while I shiver mindlessly right outside the giant picture window, directly across from “my table“; practically on the sidewalk, it’s close to an electrical outlet and the perfect size for one. It’s also almost exactly where I sit when I’m at Greco. Some call me boring, I prefer consistent.
I’m in the middle of responding to a worrisome revelation when a group of frat-tastic retards lurches past, reeking of sweat and bad alcohol. I’m less vexed by such roving stupidity than some of my friends, mostly because unlike them, I was “Greek” and thus constantly around similar. I turn away from them slightly as they stagger by, wishing Maisnon were here; one of the last times we were together in the Morg, I was grabbed so violently, you could see marks the next day. Well before THAT sickening reminder of ickiness manifested itself in my flesh, our girl became Our Lady of Terrifying Rage. Approximately two minutes after Filthy McNastyman’s fingers defiled my arm, she accosted the pulayadi mon who startled and then offended me. “You do NOT do that”, she ranted, right in his face, as his innards liquefied in the face of her wrath. Ah, good times. But why was I thinking these thoughts? I had no need for such big guns. Nothing was going to happen to me…
“Jewugingglut”
Wait, what? Immediately, I hit a mental rewind even as I strained to listen to the voice currently inhabiting my cell-phone. WAIT. OMG. No. He. Didn’t. I dropped the phone right then from ear to hip and shouted in to the bastardÂ’s wake.
“What the hell did you just say to me??”
He turned back, the look on his face scaring me so much I think I whimpered for Deepa, my Mom and/or my ferocious, late German Shepherd Rani. “I saaaaid, YOU FUCKING SLUT.” This opportunity I had given him to repeat misogynistic filth tickled his friends to no end; they laughed so hard at his courage and genius that they were choking. Two of them slapped him on the back. Oh yeah. You showed me!
The toxic disrespect in his eyes had made my blood go cold, now I felt like I was being microwaved. Shaking replaced shivering, livid indignation supplanting any discomfort with weather. Without pondering or hesitating, I yelled back a suggestion for what he could do with himself, but I felt impotent, despite it. It was painful. If I hadn’t said anything, I would’ve felt steamrolled by him and undone by regret; I did say something and what came next made it all so much worse.
“Fuck that slut.”
“Nah, man. She’s Indian. They’re not sluts.”
“You would know.”
“Hey did that bitch taste like curry when you ate her?”
I obviously don’t know what sort of taste had been left in his mouth at the past point these Neanderthals were referencing, but I knew what the acrid sensation in my mouth meant.
“What just happened? Whom were you shouting at? Where are you? Is it safe?”
“Some guy…just called me “slut”. Twice. I didn’t feel like accepting it, soÂ…anyway I’m in Adams Morgan, in front of Tryst. And no, in some ways I do not feel safe.”
“Some stranger just walked by and called you such a name?”
“Yeah. This day gets better by the MINUTE. I hate this neighborhood. Or, more accurately, the type of entirely-challenged jackass it attracts.”
I try and remind the person IÂ’m conversing with what we were talking about, because they had been in the middle of relating something important; I barely manage to do this effectively. I can’t stop considering pepper spray. Or German Shepherds.
Words flow again via a battered Sprint Samsung and mercifully, within seconds, I am immersed. I am not thinking of racist assholes or how they hate my gender. I am listening too mindfully for such torment. Which is why I don’t notice the man with dreads in the Coogi sweater who is suddenly in my face.
“Excuse me, sweetheart, I’m not tryin’ to bother you, but what’s your name?”
I shake my head and smile politely, pointing to my cellphone with the hand which can barely balance my massive umbrella. I stupidly assume he’ll understand that I am otherwise involved and move on…I want to close my eyes so I can better focus on the voice and the rather important words which I have to hear. It’s a no-win situation; this call HAS to occur RIGHT NOW, when it’s suddenly (and much to my surprise) least convenient for me. I resist the desire to let my eyelids fall because more men are headed my way and I’m starting to feel vulnerable. Can I get a hearty WTF? I’m not dressed up or done up. I can’t remember if I applied deodorant today, it’s been so hectic with errands, appointments and attempts at unpacking. I’m not polished, I’m drenched. And I’m not smiling, I’m frowning. What about ANY of that invites such stubborn attempts at interaction?
“Sweetheart. Sweetheart. I’m tryin’ to tawk to you.”
“I understand that, but I can’t talk right now, I’m really sorry.”
“Well, maybe you can just keep me warm under that big ole umbrella of yours.” He moves in closer as he says this, until he’s touching me. I’m slightly cornered and I instantly want to bolt.
“I’m sorry, I’m not interested. I’m on the phone. WITH MY BF.”
Blatant lie, but so is the apology. May I please have another order of WTF? Why am I the one saying “sorry”?
“Well, tell your man that I ain’t tryin’ to fuck ya, I’m just attemptin’ to holla at his girl.”
More laughter from the pea-brained gallery and the voice on the other end is concomitantly appalled and concerned about my location and my odds.
I’m about to state a definitive “leave me alone” when just as quickly as Coogi and Co. came, they’re off. The sigh I heave is so audible, it freaks out a random dog being walked four feet away.
“I’m fine, wait, what was I saying? No, wait, what were YOU saying? I’m so sorry about this…”
“Excuse me miss, can you keep me dry?”
OH MY GOD. WHY? WHY!
“No. No, I cannot keep you dry. Please go away, I am on the phone.”
“I ain’t tryin’ to hurt you, I’m just tryin’ to get under that umbrella.”
I want to heave this luxurious, sturdy behemoth in to the nearest public trash can. Or pretend it’s a spear and lob it through a neck, any neck of any man who has harassed me in the last 20 minutes.
“I’m talking to my boyfriend. I just want to talk to my boyfriend. Please leave me alone. It’s not even really raining anymore.”
I have no idea why I toss in that last bit of dilettante meteorology or more relevantly, why this umbrella has been the instrument of my doom and then–
“Your boyfriend, huh? What is he, white?”
“I don’t see how this is any of your business, but my (entirely non-existant) boyfriend is Indian.”
“What you couldn’t find an Ethiopian? Bitch.”
I can’t win.
Did I actually, stupidly complain about invisibility last week? I’m so sorry. No, really, this time, I am. If they canÂ’t see me, they canÂ’t say unpleasant things to me…right?
Amitabh:
I hear you and I have seen that too. I have seen similar types of kids in India too…roaming on the streets of Bombay and Delhi. Either they are from filthy rich families (in which case they drive huge cars, hit people, kill people, rape girlfriends, take drugs and get away with it) or they are from extremely poor backgrounds (they have scarfs tied around their necks, they walk in groups, harass passerbys, join gangs, are harassed by police and they spell trouble too).
In America, if you visit desi areas like Devon, Jackson heights etc. you see desi punk kids. Similar in nature to the ones seen in India. But since there are a minority if you look at the surroundings, they STAND OUT like a sore thumb.
They look out of place. You can immediatly pick them out.
They hang out in desi places like that because that is where they feel at home. If they go do their cat-calls in other places, the white and africans will make them pay. They are scared to do it to anyone other than indians.
That is why when you go to Jackson heights, you see this kids being a menace. They are acting out. They don’t want to study. They don’t want to blog. They don’t want to read Sepia mutiny. They either grow up with trouble makers and become one themselves OR their parents are too busy to look after them and notice their bad ways OR they are angry about something that happened to them in life (eg death in family, abuse etc.) and take to drugs and harassing others to make themselves feel better.
They can’t play their loud indian music anywhere else except desi areas. That is where they will get noticed…among their own people. These types of kids are everywhere (india and abroad) and they are acting out. They find the desi area a safe heaven to act out and hence you see them there.
Siddhartha – here I disagree with you. I’m not saying that people who earn more money respect women more, nor that all lower class men engage in catcalling, nor that only working class men ever hoot or holler.
However, within the USA hooting and hollering as a practice clearly follows certain social contours. Not only that, but you can find some men within these groups openly defending it as a legitimate.
I do see some clear empirical regularities here that correlate highly with various subcultures.
Sonia:
Firstly: I am sure that JoAT is perfectly capable of defending herself! Second: I disagree with you that people just WANT to read meanings into JoAT’s words. The subtext to several of the postings that have taken JoAT to task is that her point of view was shoddily expressed; posts #214 and #221 (especially the latter) being examples of said subtext. Look… I sympathise with JoAT in regard to the following:
Heaven knows I haven’t been in peak form at 5:00 p.m. on some Fridays. However, tiredness at 5:00 p.m. on Friday cannot be a valid excuse for shoddy expression among people who frequently post on a blog that is gaining in influence the way SM is. You all seem like dedicated professionals, and would not tolerate in your professional lives the sort of unrigorous thinking that JOaT’s post #23 showcases; so why should you tolerate it on SM, which is clearly such a labour of love to all of you on this board ?
On a more personal note: I used to shy away from the desis around me when I was a postdoc in the U.S. Half of them were casually and unthinkingly racist in their attitudes, while the other half seemed like – for the want of a pithier term – crypto-fascists. Not the support-the-Pentagon type of crypto-fascists –desis are more sophisticated than that 🙂 – but, rather, the Hurray-for-Grover-Norquist type of crypto-fascists. Then, I discovered SM; and I realised how blinkered my understanding of desis in the U.S. had been. Imagine, however, how things would’ve gone if my introduction to SM had happened through JoAT’s and DesiDawg’s posts today…
This, I hope, illustrates what I mean by saying that those who post frequently on SM have, by their excellence, created the need to be responsible. So, JoAT – and DesiDawg -more rigour please!
Well……. like I said above, some people (women and men both) consider it a legitimate way to “hook up”. So for them, the behaviour would not be considered “low class”.
Culture clash.
Perhaps, and it might be an entertaining academic exercise to test the hypothesis. But that’s not the point here, is it? The point here is to talk about incidents that the victim/recipient/target finds to be threatening. If a man hoots and hollers at a woman, and she hoots and hollers back, and doesn’t feel threatened, well, maybe that’s cultural or economic or racial or regional or age-based or lord knows what, but the key point is that no threat was felt — and perhaps none was intended.
But in this thread we are talking about behavior that the recipient/victim/target finds to be offensive, threatening, and/or reducing of her dignity. Let’s focus on reducing the incidence of threatening encounters, rather than go off on sociological sidetracks that end up being about other topics.
Yep! That’s what I’m talking about. For such a woman that kind of behaviour is not considered “low class”. She likes it. This has to do with her socio-cultural conditioning. If you hang in neighborhoods where this type of behaviour is considered a legit form or meeting partners of the opposite gender, or rather, an appropriate mating or pre-mating ritual, you will see what I mean.
I draw people’s attention to this story, which tipster “Shocked” posted on the News tab earlier today.
Since I grew up in Goa and was witness to the mash-up of foreign female tourists and male domestic tourists from other Indian states. The knee-jerk reaction was to blame the busloads that came to leer, from as far away as Bihar. Things got so bad that New Year and Xmas celebrations were segregated!! When I left home for Bombay one of my best friends was from Bihar. We often discussed the following -Is this the problem? That in the Indian arranged marriage context, the assumption among males that “a bride will be found for me” propogates a culture that never requires young men to approach/date women on a level plane?
And can this be simlarly applied to drunk frat boys? “I am so pwerful and drunk and nonchalant I will get the girls no matter what”
I know I am straying in my thinking, but what I am trying to say that incidents are fostered when there is no accountability.
What’s there to learn? I grew up with hip-hop culture and witnessed the mannerisms of youth within the community I grew up in change in the span of 5 years during the late 80’s. She’s right, there is an overly present aspect of hip-hop culture that embraces thuggery – a combination of deceit, objectification, exploitation, self-degradation and mischieve – inhumanity. African-American church and political leaders have spoken on this countless times over the past 2 decades.
Neale – yeah, and even if you are dressed head to toe in salwar-kameez for SWIMMING.
Some guys were even taken pics of us!!! And they were uncles with their kids!
I was shocked coz I thought Goa was more “progressive”.
But I will say this – I felt way more safe and comfy there than anywhere in North India. Goa is a nice place.
“Your distinction between hooting and hollering on the one hand, and other forms of aggression against women on the other hand, is a false distinction.”
O, really? So, the guy who makes a habit of catcalling women on the sidewalk, but not any more than that, can’t/shouldn’t be distinguished from someone whom commits a more serious transgression – say rape? I am sure we can agree that different types of intimidation should be responded to in different ways since the degree of the infractions vary? Not all men who intimidate women in one way (ex: by catcalling) necessarily do so in other ways (by committing a more serious sexual offense) – so, yes, I do believe a distinction is useful.
“I contest your claim that hooting and hollering is a particularly lower-class activity.”
You may, but it is. As I have said before, this does not mean that affluent men do not intimidate women in other ways, but my point is, that they do in fact do it in other ways. The exception, as stated before, are young men who do so regardless of class/race. The minute you see wall street bigwigs catcalling on the sidewalk at the same rate as working class men, I will retract my assertion. You will not see this.
“…we need to look at the entire spectrum of how men intimidate and disrespect women in our society. And we most closely need to look at the way we and people around us behave, because that is where we have the most power to make an immediate change.”
I agree. But a few comments on-line are neither the beginning nor the end of how anyone here handles this issue in the real world. Also, there are important issues that come into play with this topic and then there are observations which people make given their experiences. I do not believe that those observations necessarily detract from the important issues, but rational people could disagree.
And black women in particular are fed up with the mainstream hip hop “culture”s portrayal of women.
It’s true. This is something that is talked about alot in the black community.
Again, it’s mainstream hip hop, with it’s commercial emphasis. There is alot of good in underground hip hop though.
Even reggae is being influenced by the mainstream hip hop culture though, and that is something despised by alot of roots reggae enthusiasts.
I agree with Bidi-smoker’s use of the term “low class”. It doesn’t indicate financial or social status, it indicates behaviour. But what is considered “low class” behaviour to me is something totally normal and acceptable to alot of women. They see no disrespect whatsoever in being hooted and hollered at. They consider it a compliment. Again, we are all products of our cultural conditionings.
Likewise, there is the same misconception among Blacks and people of African descent that everyone subscribes to the same social rules, or are ‘supposed’ to. There are generationa, sub-cultural and moral gaps in this.
At the same token, there are Westernized women of East Indian descent who subscribe to these social practices; who indulge in non-Desi cultures and sub-cultures.
AJP: got to this thread a bit late. Rest assured, soon as I’m back in DC, you’re a phone call away from Punjabi Wrath On Demand (motto: “It’s Scaretastic!”). Call me…Mini-Maisnon. 😀
Sorry to hear about this. I think DC is to you what SF is to me, in some ways. Some places, you just can’t catch a break.
Tamasha in # 257
I’m the least concerned if a man who molests me gets a disease and dies. In fact, now that you got me thinking about it, I won’t be washing or changing those pins.
ajk, I refer you to my comment #365 above. And my point is not that a catcall and rape are the same thing. My point is that it rapidly becomes unproductive to focus on a specific type of expression rather than on totality of the encounter. You claim that catcalls are a working-class behavior. Maybe. A couple of other people have claimed that in some contexts where catcalls are common, they are also not considered particularly threatening. Maybe that too. The issue here is threatening encounters, whether the medium of the threat is a catcall, a disrespectful statement, a grope, or whatever else. (How one ranks the severity of each of these is not the point. Obviously a rape is more severe than a grope.)
As I said in comment 365, whether catcalls are a working class behavior could make for an interesting academic study. But what problem will it solve? Let’s focus on problem solving. Let’s identify the encounters that are problematic and focus on reducing their incidence. That is going to require that we think about more difficult topics than catcalls — topics like misogyny, privilege, power.
Oy, sorry. Haven’t yet read all the comments.
Several months ago I had a similar experience to situation #2, but in circumstances and with comments such that I felt very physically threatened and endangered. I called my friend Scotto to a) scare the person away and b) ask him to come and pick me up. Recently Scotto and I were at a party talking about Aikido, a martial art he got me to try for a while (I hope to return to some time) and which he’s quite devoted to. Scotto was saying that in general these martials arts are good at fostering a certain kind of self-confidence—not the confidence that you can kick anyone’s ass, but the confidence that you can approach a situation with some deliberateness and also walk away from it with a little less trauma. A female friend of ours argued that it still doesn’t fix anything, and it glosses over how awful these situations are. I piped up that it’s not a cure, but it makes it better–I can imagine that years ago I would have totally panicked in this sutation. Instead, I never really lost it, and I made two key observations that I attributed to Aikido—1) that I deliberately thought not to give this harraser an opportunity to knock me off my feet or throw me off balance, and so I maintained a solid stance and did not run until I felt confident that I could run without being tripped and 2) that I was not going to respond with either hostility or passivity/fake niceness, but firmly kept telling the harraser to leave me alone. I felt this kept the harrassers “advances” from accelerating.
I still found it very upsetting, and still find it upsetting. I definitely travel in packs and am extremely wary of being alone at night, which makes me very sad when I think about it too much.
Yeah. If not for Dr.King Indians would still be drinking water in a separate fountain along with Blacks and Hispanics. I would have liked to see the faces of some those North Indians claiming to be descendants of Aryans during that time.
Just as a jump-off from what you wrote, and not as a criticism in anyway:
There’s a lot to learn as rap music is a musical artform with much to teach. Poetry can be dogerel (spelling) or it can be Walt Whitman. The only people who lose out when they equate hip hop with thuggery are the people who miss out on the great stuff. I wish I was immersed in hop hip culture, as you meet some of the most dynamic, thoughtful people in those communities, of all colors and creeds. Its just that they are not getting played on the radio. On the radio is some bullshit. I don’t think some of it is even hip hop anymore. A lot of songs don’t have a rhyme scheme, and they’re is no imagery beyond the most basic level. Maybe it used to be a cliche to think about what happened to hip hop, but to me, the only song I can think of right now that is hip hop is that Lupe Fiasco song about how he used to go skateboarding when he was a kid. Its kind of startling that the only real hip hop song I know that tells a story, uses creativity, and tries to elevate perspective; is a song by a relative new-comer thats not in itself as sophisticated as some of the songs that used to be out there. But then again I’m not into hip hop like I used to be and I’m sure there’s great poets out there. For one, there’s Outlandish
Um, I’ve given up on the substance of the thread, it looks like it’s done and over but. . .
Abhi, 195: you’re hilarious.
Very cool Saheli. I have also done Aikido, and yeah I go through a very similiar thing in situations like that. granted I sucked at Aikido. It does though leave the after thought of being treated rudely but thats different I guess
And I’m sorry that that happened to you
I always find this a difficult topic, because I don’t have answers, which makes me uncomfortable. Violence is a very present thread in two ways: the threat of violence from others and the option of violence as a reaction.
If it’s not too late to ask: Anna, when asking “what did you say to me?”, what would be the point of asking? I mean, I assume that you just asked and didn’t sit there analysing the best strategic choic of words, etc. — but in general, it’s a common response, so I wonder about it. As you noted, it gave him an opportunity to repeat himself. One theory is that the public attention and (theoretical) shame would halt him, but it doesn’t seem to have worked. Shame seems to be a much weaker force that it used to be. Violence is the third route, where asking “what did you say?” means giving someone a chance to back down before simply hitting them. That would probably be pretty effective, if you were big/skilled/numerous enough to dominate him physically.
Assuming that violence isn’t the right solution, and assuming that anybody making such comments is immune to shame … well, I don’t really know how to stop someone. Ignoring them, while difficult, may be the most effective response?
In the short term, of course. In the big picture, this is a symptom of a lot of deeply embedded problems intersecting.
Scotto,
sometimes somebody who says something to you is too much of a coward to repeat it again, clearly and directly to your face. While that wasn’t the case here, it’s not always a bad way of dealing with this sort of situation. I once confronted 3 men with what they had said, the only response I got from any of them came from the one I was looking directly at – he said “I didn’t say it”. The other two kept completely mum.
It’s actually a story I’ve been meaning to blog for some time.
Just a coincidence. Happened to watch Gurinder Chadha’s BHAJI ON THE BEACH yesterday. Interesting insights into racial-sexual phenomenon from the Indian perspective. Seemed confined to England and irrelevant to the Indian diaspora in the US when the movie first came out, but quite applicable to the US now.
379 “If not for Dr.King Indians would still be drinking water in a separate fountain along with Blacks and Hispanics.”
Yep, I agree. And not just Dr. King, but a lot of non-Gandhian black leaders should deserve the credit for making America a more inclusive society. I said “more,” not perfect.
Thank you Sahej… Amitabh clarified earlier, but really, I think you touched on a lot of great points. I used to have issues with all rap music because I only heard what was on the radio. But there really is so much out there, and there are so many artists whose lyrics really touch on some interesting topics. I was sort of re-introduced to many of these artists through my boyfriend… its unfortunate that you have people like 50 cent getting famous with the nonsense they rap about.
Ennis – do you think there’s any way to inform your decision about whether some random catcallers are of the type you encountered, or the type Anna encountered? That is, I can see the scenario you described, but if I were trying to decide how to react to some thugs on the street saying things, do you have nay insight as to making a better decision?
Honestly, no. I think the difference had more to do with the fact that I am male and tall, and she is female and smaller than I. The environmental factors should have favored her – she was in front of a cafe whereas I was confronting racist idiots in a park like area. They had less of a chance of getting caught if they had jumped me.
And I can’t say that my decision was well thought out – like Anna I just went on automatic pilot.
Just to restore some of your faith in the 2nd Generation, there are desis here in the US who like to pass for black.
Thank you. I wanted to state this earlier, but didn’t want to bring up the whole argument concerning the misconception that all dark skinned people in the world subscribe to the Black cultural, racial and social identity. I understand that they do not. At this point in time it’s become a choice, even for those who would otherwise be White, non-South Asian, Hispanic, or of Indigenous ancestries.