I know it's late, but I wanted to go home. I think I have a right to walk to my own apartment that I pay for. These guys, three or four of them, are standing there making hooting noises, long story short, and I flipped this time. I was already upset because I've been having not a good week. I left my keys somewhere, my phone went out, I was having personal problems with a bunch of people whom I had been led to believe were my friends......and feeling very hurt, stabbed, really, like I can't trust anyone. I just wanted to go home to my own bed and take out my contact lenses. I didn't have much cash on me and didn't feel like finding an ATM.....so I figured if I took Myrtle there were still a lot of people around.....so turning the corner these men on DeKalb, in front of that God damned funeral parlor where they hang out, started with me. I know some people will say to let it roll off me and I've had so many bad encounters and my confrontations never produced positive results.....I had come to think that it was too dangerous to say anything. But this time, I thought, no this isn't right, they have no right to be doing this. They were acting like it was their duty to punish me for walking home alone at a certain hour, like, she's a slut, she deserves whatever she gets. I know there are people who do stupid things, women included, like go out to dangerous places late at night and bring home men, and so on, but sometimes life calls for one doing things like this. It doesn't always mean we're drunk/desperate/mentally ill it means or could mean we didn't have a lot of cash and just wanted to go home. So I screamed at these men, "You have no right! No right! You think just cause I'm a woman walking home you have a right to treat me this way? You think this is a fucking joke?" But they just kept laughing. Then, across the street these black girls saw it, and they were laughing too. I said to them, "You don't have to take this!" They kept laughing. They think it's a joke--so I said, "If you take these men's side, or go with them, then you deserve whatever you get and I have no mercy for you." Harsh, I know, but they were laughing at me. I know that there is a multitude of injustice in this world and I"m not unsympathetic to that. But I deal with this EVERY DAY in this neighborhood. I get this every time I get off the subway, every time I go to the store. I have a sore throat now from yelling and I can't even go get painkillers cause I know I'll get harassed or assaulted. I have had three of these confrontations in a month and it's only a matter of time before it will look like I"m the crazy or bad one. If these women feel like they have to take this from these men in order to.....I don't know what.....then they're doing a disservice to all women. And I'm not going to accept that. I don't want to play into further oppression like class bias or racism because I hate that trait in people, I think that's unequivocally wrong. Still, I'm not the one doing it. Wrong is wrong, unacceptable is unacceptable. I deserve, as does anyone, the right to walk around anywhere at any time dressed however I want, within reason or at least where I live and pay rent.
At the same time, I've been fighting hard and for what? I'm going to start looking into one way plane tickets to California, because as long as I have to live in this country I can't live here. I'm done. I had the same problems in Philly, though not nearly as many in DC or Boston. I really, really can't take this and if I'm going to stay sane I have to get out of here. This neighborhood is a dump and fucked up and I'm sorry, but this doesn't happen in nicer parts. I don't like the inhumanity of gentrification but I .....I do ....I don't know, maybe if it's a bunch of white frat boys or something, yes, they come from all walks of life. I just know this is where I am and it's unbearable. I have to get out. I have to say this is unusually bad....I didn't get this even in Cairo. I don't know how people take it, I won't. I'm done. Done. There are almost no redeeming qualities about this place.
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