In Memory Of Adilah Gaither,
Tanganika Stanton,
Mildred Beaubrun and
Sakia Gunn:
International
Anti-Street Harassment
Week
Monday, March 19, 2012 at 9:39AMThe Blogmother
I just learned that this week is International Anti-Street Harassment Week while reading a post named after the documentary "Black Woman Walking". She was memorializing Adilah Gaither:
I lived to tell about it, but 16-year-old Adilah Gaither wasn’t so lucky. Black Woman Walking is dedicated to the memory of young Adilah, who was shot and killed in 1998 while standing at a bus stop because she wouldn’t give a boy who was trying to holla her phone number. Chicago Now
For those of you who think this is funny or a compliment, It's not, it's deadly serious.
Take the case of Mildred Beaubrun.
Investigators said the men opened fire on a car full of teenage girls at John Young Parkway and Princeton Street two weeks ago. Mildred Beaubrun was removed from life support Tuesday, more than two weeks after she was shot at the Orlando intersection.
Investigators said Beaubrun and two of her friends stopped at a gas station after leaving Club Firestone. They were approached by a group of men asking for their phone numbers.
When the men didn't get what they wanted, they followed the girls to the intersection of John Young Parkway and Princeton (see map). One of them fired a shot. It hit Beaubrun, who was sitting in the back seat. WFTV
Not surprising in the case of Tanganika Stanton, her accused murdered is walking free.
Prosecutors said a man had fired shots at the house after Stanton refused to give him her hamburger and her mother refused to cook him his own since he was a stranger.
Sakia Gunn was 15 when she was murdered:
A white station wagon with two men in it pulled up to the curb. According to one of Sakia’s closest friends, Valencia, the men started harassing the girls and asking them to come closer. The girls said no, they weren’t interested. They explained they were gay.
One of the men got out of the car. He attacked the girls, holding one of them in a choke-hold. Sakia and Valencia started fighting him. Sakia hit him. Then he stabbed her in the chest.
The man ran back to his car and sped away. The girls raced to a car that had stopped at a red light and asked the driver to take them to the hospital. He did. Sakia died in her friend Valencia’s arms in the emergency room. Democracy Now.
This isn't about compliments, it's about dominance and control. I don't know why its a radical thought that a woman should be able to walk to work, school, and play unmolested. I don't know why there isn't an uprising from MEN demanding that their wives, daughters and sisters be able to travel freely without the cloud of DEATH hanging over their heads if they don't respond to unwanted sexual advances from men.
Feel free to add the stories of other victims in the comments section.
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