Posted on 10/31/2014 2:35:21 PM PDT by grundle
When the street harassment video was launched earlier this week, we hoped that it would make an impact but never imagined that it would be viewed more than 15,000,000 times in the first three days. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Many women feel a little less alone and a little more validated in their experiences and we have heard support from our partners, new and old.
Rob Bliss Creative donated time and labor to create this video and support our work. We are grateful for his work and the wide reach that his video has achieved but we feel the need to directly address other responses to the video.
First, we regret the unintended racial bias in the editing of the video that over represents men of color. Although we appreciate Rob’s support, we are committed to showing the complete picture. It is our hope and intention that this video will be the start of a series to demonstrate that the type of harassment we’re concerned about is directed toward women of all races and ethnicities and conducted by an equally diverse population of men.
Hollaback! understands that harassment is a broad problem perpetuated by a diversity of individuals regardless of race. There is no one profile for a harasser and harassment comes in many different forms. Check out our Harassment Is: Identities and Street Harassment guide on how individuals experience harassment differently. This video should have done a better job of representing this knowledge.
There are many more voices to add to this conversation and Hollaback! is committed to continuing to make space for those voices by providing platforms and amplification of people sharing their stories and finding ways to push back.
Second, there has been another problem which deserves further attention: the onslaught of rape and death threats that have been directed at the Shoshana B. Roberts, the subject of the video, are unacceptable but sadly unsurprising. When women are visible in online or offline spaces, they experience harassment. When women demand change, they meet violent demands for their silence.
We understand that violence exists on a spectrum that is played out on the street and online. We understand that it needs to change. We hope that you will work with us to end street harassment and to fight harassment wherever it is found.
Third, the coverage that this video has received shows how far we have come and how far we still have to go. Many outlets have used the video to have conversations about street harassment that would never have happened even five years ago. For many, street harassment is a real problem to be reported as such.
Other coverage, however, shows that sexism still shapes culture in a way that harms women. When journalists on major news networks reinforce, support, and normalize street harassment they minimize the violence and fear that women experience on the street.
We want to thank everyone for participating in this vital dialogue — and we encourage continued conversation and debate.
For later
This is just some “war on women” scam. Doesn’t reflect real life. How many normal people walk around NYC with some guy filming them?
So when will they post the vid of all the white guys acting like the blacks?
I thought it was only the rich white guys. Now it is anyone who scratches his crotch. We are all harassers & rapers no matter what our skin color.
And some still believe all this crap.
The camera was hidden.
Obviously, walking down the street is “racial profiling,” even when [as usual] the perps are self-selecting.
Liberals do their best to tear down a culture that respected and protected women. And then complain when men disrespect and harass women.
Typical of the kind of logic that produces the pat-down-white-granny-in-a-wheelchair mentality. The harassers were almost entirely “men of color” therefore, we must trash all men as harassers.
This is pretty much typical behavior in NYC of the lower classes, and it doesn’t have anything to do with race. Walk by any construction site where there are mostly white men working. This is somehow mostly a New York City problem... on another thread someone pointed out that they thought it was working class italian men who brought this over and it’s become a cultural maintstay of the city.
Which law enforcement agency is investigating this?
Nothing to do with race? Somebody’s been thoroughly indoctrinated, I see. Crime rates, too, are race neutral, right? Whites rape blacks at the same rate as blacks rape whites, yes?
OR... OR... is it a fact that it was just the of-color types harrassing, and the libs who concocted this BS were caught with their pants down (no pun intended) and so they needed to "make a statement" trying to discount the obvious?
yup, I’ve obviously been indoctrinated lol
Sorry, but I’ve never had the pleasure of being cat-called by a well-dressed “suit” of any race. Nope... it’s been the perview of the lower class, and mind you I’m just speaking of New York City.
“Nothing to do with race...” Do you maintain that blacks and whites in the lower classes are equally guilty of this crude behavior? If not, I apologize. If yes, then you’ve been well trained by our liberal masters.
Black people violate personal space all the time and it isn't considered “racially offensive” to do so. Nope, it's considered a “chauvinist male pig” trait that "all men" are "guilty" of.
Where's the video of homosexuals making remarks at straight men/women ("take it as a compliment, honey!")? It is considered "wrong" to lash out at someone for this EVEN in a washroom (yet it is "wrong" for men to approach women PERIOD these days without prior written approval)...
you are very right
don’t give them any more hits.
I’d bet my bottom dollar that woman didn’t get any catcalls by residents on Park Avenue (if she went near there).
I can only attest to circumstantial evidence thereof... it may also be that I am not the type minorites fancy( I’m rather scandinavian looking). But I have certainly experienced the NYC cat-calling, as both a teenager and adult... and it was overwhelmingly done by low class white men. Not men in suits... mostly construction types or santitation workers. It may also be true that the actress in the video, is more of the type certain minorities fancy and perhaps less so by lower class white men.
I’ve also seen this type of behavior exhibited towards men, by low class women.. though they do it in groups.
I bow to your personal experience. I didn’t realize you were a woman. I hope I’ve not offended you.
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