Fear

Thursday last week, I picked Sam up from work so that we had a little time before we had to get up to the Police concert.  I was lucky enough to find parking outside the store (my new parallel parking skill are another wonderful story), so I decided to go in and find the book my new book club is reading (Dante's Club, IT people from my sis's work).  I first went and bought a donut, because I hadn't really eaten lunch.  (That's another story, and a bad one.)  And then I went upstairs and went over to mystery.  On my way over, a man sort of flagged me down and said, "Can I ask you a question?" and I said, uh, okay?  And then he asked a question.  At first I couldn't hear him, which I thought was weird, because the store was quiet.  So I asked him to repeat the question, and then, what I heard sounded kind of not appropriate.  I think he said, "Can I get a piece?" and I think he was referring to me, and not the donut. 

This flustered me, so I walked away, towards the book.  I found the book, and then I headed back past the guy (who watched me walk away from him) towards the doors to the back room and the office, which I knew Sam would have to leave eventually.  I sort of skulked around, because I didn't want to go anywhere alone, but I also didn't want to make a huge fuss and tell the manager or anything.  So I waited for Sam and tried to think of what to do, and when he came out, I told him what had happened.  He immediately wanted to tell someone, and I held him off, telling him it wasn't a big deal, and that I didn't want to get anyone in trouble.  But you know, I was troubled, and Sam was upset that I was troubled, and after we got in the car and I got really upset, he insisted on calling someone just to tell them to keep an eye out for inappropriate behavior by this guy.  This didn't make me happy, although it didn't make me unhappy either.

Things are murky in my head, and were from the moment this guy leered at me and said what he said.  For all I know, I heard wrong--he was speaking quietly.  But he was also looking at me funny, and I really think he said something not nice to me.  Whether or not he said what I think he said, I felt violated by the way he was looking and speaking to me.  It was a dirty, disgusting feeling, and let me assure you, I'm not the kind of girl that normally gets lots of male attention, good or bad, so it was a new feeling.  It was repulsive, actually, and not flattering at all.  I hated it.  There is one thing I am omitting here, and it makes me feel quivery to even mention it, and it's the reason I didn't want Sam to tell someone, and it's the reason I didn't want to tell someone:  the guy was African-American.  It doesn't change the leer or what I thought I heard, but I didn't want to get someone in trouble if I wasn't exactly sure, and I didn't want to appear racist, either.  What if he was just asking about the donut?  (I realize that isn't exactly the most feasible possibility.  How many times do strangers ask you for food?  Unless they're homeless, and if I had to guess, I'd say no way this guy was.  He was nicely dressed and looked clean and shiny and well fed.)  Either way, I'm almost 100% sure that I'd be less reluctant to make some sort of accusation about this person if he had been white.  I don't know if that's some sort of fucked up racism, but I so didn't want him to be saying what he was saying, and I so didn't want to have to be a white girl accusing a black man of something.  Especially if he didn't do it.

I don't think about race very often, because I don't have to.  I know that's what we call privilege, and it's nice and tidy for me to say this.  But the incident in the bookstore became less about sexism and harrassment (which is really what it primarily was about; no one should be able to get away with speaking to a woman so basely) and more about race the more I thought about it.  And that gives me the willies.  I'm mad that someone felt they could do that, I'm mad that I got scared and cowered in a corner until my boyfriend came, and I'm mad that I didn't want to tell someone what happened because of the skin colors involved.  I'm mad at the entire situation, from front to back.  It was a bad cap to a really bad day. 

LIke I said, it's all very murky and muddled in my head.  I'm still not sure I did the right thing by letting Sam tell one of the managers to keep an eye out.  I'm still not sure I shouldn't have done it myself.  There's no clear answers here, at least for me.

Comments

[Rita]

I'm so sorry that this happened to you. It sucks when someone catches you off guard and makes you feel unsafe. Although, I have to say, I think you were right to trust your instincts and get away from that guy. I don't think you were responding to his skin color. I think if some white guy (or asian, latino, or any other ethnicity) said that to you and looked at you like you said this guy did, you would have felt the same way. I don't know if that would have made you tell someone or not, but I don't think his race is what made you feel unsafe. You're smarter than that. The fact that it occurs to you to look into whether or not you were responding to a threat to your personal safety, or whether the threat was percieved because of his race, tells me that you were NOT uncomfortable because of his race, but because of his general pervy-ness. Personally, after being in Rome, where I was accosted a couple of times (I don't frequently get that sort of attention here usually), I am always sort of leary of loner guys who ask me for something. They might be asking for directions, or the time - something completely innocent - but if they are alone and they are asking me while I'm alone, I'm always on high alert.

It sounds to me like this particular guy was a skeevy asshole, regardless of his color.