Living in a mostly white area is driving me to insanity
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So today, I went into an empty fast-food restaurant with my husband. We picked a seat on a long couch that run across the entire left wall of the restaurant. There were about 6-7 tables for that couch (all empty). Shortly, my husband got up to use the restroom and left me alone. Not much later, an elderly man (white) who appeared to be about 60-70 years old showed up. To my very unpleasant surprise, he chose the table RIGHT NEXT to mine despite the fact that there were literally 20+ empty tables in the restaurant (the entire restaurant was empty). Because the seat was a long, connecting couch, he was pretty much sitting right next to me.
My husband then came out and sat back down next to me (in between me and the old, white guy). The old man, upon seeing this, instantly got up and moved to another seat across the restaurant. If this isn’t all the signs of a creep, then I don’t know what is.
What sucks is that ever since I moved to the south, none of this stuff is unusual anymore. Getting harassed by old, creepy WMs is par for the course of living here. And tbh, I’m almost sure it’s because of my race because sometimes, even when there are other women (white and black) around, I still get harassed noticeably more than they do. It’s even gotten so extreme at times that my husband notices and tells me to take his hand and stay by his side closely if we happen to be in a place where there are too many WMs. And nowadays, when I know we’re about to go to a place where WMs are likely to be the main demographic (i.e. gun range), I purposefully try to make myself look as terrible as can be (wearing baggy clothes, messy hair, etc…) to at least deter some attention.
At one point, I even had a random white guy in the airport walk slowly past me (I was sitting in my seat alone waiting for my next flight–my husband wasn’t with me) while grinning at me the whole time. Then slowly walked into the restroom with his head still facing me, grinning at me. Then minutes later, came out of the restroom, continued to stare and grin at me. After he walked past me, he turned around, walked backwards, so he can keep grinning at me. Can you blame me for being scared shitless?
I’m getting exasperated—not just because of the sheer number of creeps here, but also because of the fact that I have virtually no one to talk to about this. This place is starting to make me go insane but no one I know can relate to me because most of my Asian friends live in happy, safe enclaves back in California. They don’t have to deal with as many creeps. I can’t go to Asian female subreddits or forums either because so many AFs defend WMs like crazy in those places. If anything, rather than bashing the harassers, some of them rather bash the victims, especially if the harasser is a WM.
I’ve always been aware of racism against Asians, but my experiences living here in the south was what drove me to find forums/subs like AznIdentity or AsianSoul in the first place. Yes, it’s THAT bad. I’m getting sick of it and it’s just frustrating that there’s no specific AF community to support victims of racialized sexual advancements by white creeps who would otherwise never do the same to a non-AF.
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@natalie_ng done
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wider community in general doing nothing to stop this
Yes, a lot of the times, it takes place right in front of others but no one seems to care (in front of restaurant/store employees or in front of other customers for example). Most, from my experience, just look away or even pretend not to see it.
These entitled sex predators have become an epidemic. No where else would these creepy white guys feel even safe to pull this off.
That’s probably why the only people I’ve seen this happen to is other AFs. But for some reason, these other AFs won’t admit that the trend happens to be mainly WMs and no men of other races do this as much.
I could make a new category called advice and maybe one of the sub-categories could address this issue and allow people to see that this isn’t in their heads and ways to address it.
Or maybe squeeze it under the Solutions category you already have.
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What sucks is that ever since I moved to the south, none of this stuff is unusual anymore. Getting harassed by old, creepy WMs is par for the course of living here. And tbh, I’m almost sure it’s because of my race because sometimes, even when there are other women (white and black) around
It’s definitely your race. Thanks to a combo of:
● racist dehumanizing stereotypes [created and spread by white males] that paint Asian women as easy sex objects
● many self-hating/white worshiping/oblivious Asian women who tolerate and even reward such behavior
● Asian men and the wider community in general doing nothing to stop this
These entitled sex predators have become an epidemic. No where else would these creepy white guys feel even safe to pull this off.
Can you blame me for being scared shitless?
No. Nobody (would is sane) would blame you.
no specific AF community to support victims of racialized sexual advancements by white creeps who would otherwise never do the same to a non-AF.
I could make a new category called advice and maybe one of the sub-categories could address this issue and allow people to see that this isn’t in their heads and ways to address it.
