I believe this is true. Went to see a friend in California a few years back. We went to San Francisco..got caught out after dark walking to parking garage.
Coming directly towards us on the sidewalk was a group of young blacks, both male and female maybe (6 of them or so, the number gets larger every time I think of it. LOL!).
I wanted to cross the street, get out of the way. My friend says "no you won't".."We are walking right through them without either looking straight at them OR averting our eyes".
I was SO SCARED. My friend says if we would have crossed the street, we'd have made ourselves "easy marks". Staying the course, so to speak, told them we were from "around there".
I've NEVER been back to S.F.
You did exactly the right thing.One thing about ghetto culture is that standing up for yourself is respected and deemed absolutely necessary for survival.
I had a white friend in the Sixties who went to one of our local high schools and he got into THREE fights with black kids who tried to"test"him the first week.Well,guess what?Two of those guys later became his good friends and"had his back"in future confrontations.
The sad thing about that particular school is that there are no whites LEFT there anymore!They either go to private schools or moved out to the burbs.Yet the same principle hold true for the Mexican and Asian kids who took their place.You don't let the black kids"punk"you.Nor do you let your"own people"punk you either.
I used to live in San Francisco when it still had a black middle class.Now the only blacks left are the hard core project folks or the older blacks who haven't high tailed it back to the South yet.Those old houses in the Fillmore that black families purchased in the Fifties for ten grand are now going for one Million and up!
That buys a lot of property in Opelousas,Louisiana!