If the details in this post on the Park Slope Forum of Brooklynian are accurate, the incident related from Second Street is utterly vile. The key part is where some people tell a woman of Caribbean heritage who lives on Second Street in the Slope to “go back to your own neighborhood.” It doesn’t involve violence, but rather words and utterly foul attitudes. We’re just going to go to the copy & paste and let the original poster do the talking:
So my wife was walking our two dogs back to our apartment on 2nd Street between PPW and 8th. Three people were walking abreast toward her on the same side of the street. My wife stopped and they continued, refusing to move. One of the women bumped my wife and stepped on my dog’s paw. When my wife confronted her about the rude behavior, the woman replied laughing , “Oh, I’m sooo sorry.” When my wife said she would appreciate it if they didn’t take up the whole sidewalk, the woman said, and I have a neighbor who confirms this, “Then maybe you should go back to your own neighborhood.”
Now, the fucked thing about this is that my wife is black, from Barbados, and this white woman told her she should go back to her “own” neighborhood, assuming what gawd only knows. Our neighbor called the woman out for her racist comments and told her that maybe she should leave the neighborhood if that’s her attitude toward people of color. If I had a gun I would have shot the asshole.
This women lives on the south side of 2nd Street, about 1/3rd of the way down from PPW, in a brownstone with rental units.
If it’s an accurate recounting of events, everything about the story is despicable.
9 responses so far ↓
1 bk heights // Jul 10, 2008 at 10:48 am
this is so disgusting and wrong.
i would have slapped the woman’s face for speaking this way.
2 slopedweller // Jul 10, 2008 at 11:40 am
This is the kind of stuff I hate about my neighbors, I hope someone posts a picture of this alleged “woman” stroller nazi.
3 denver // Jul 10, 2008 at 11:46 am
My wife had a perfect retort to a similar comment in Richmond, Virginia, a few years ago. A blue-haired older white woman was standing at the bus stop talking about “coloreds,” “coons,” and “niggers,” and assuming that since my wife is white that she would be in total agreement with her. My wife looked her straight in the face and said “is that the same mouth you pray with?” and the woman stared back astounded and silent.
4 lg // Jul 10, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Was she drunk? Really. Park Slope is obnoxious (and Slopers secret thoughts perhaps tend this way) but they are so PC that I’m really surprised someone would verbalize this. Maybe in one of the more typically “white ethnic” neighborhoods (and I come from white ethnic stock myself; I know of what I speak) but in thoroughly gentrified Park Slope this is odd.
5 Ben K. // Jul 10, 2008 at 2:57 pm
To be fair, this has nothing to do with Park Slope itself and more to do about the quality of people you can find in every neighborhood in every city in every state in the US. Racism is alive and well. That this happened in Park Slope this time doesn’t mean it isn’t happening on the Upper West Side, Sheepshead Bay or Forest Hills right now.
6 Anonymous // Jul 10, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Please describe the 3 people who were walking towards your wife. I know kids of all stripes love to hog the sidewalks. But, anyway, were these 3 yuppies? hipsters/ under 35? Latino? or Brooklyn accented speech townies? Or college age…? It would be interesting.
7 Janet // Jul 11, 2008 at 9:08 am
“Go back to your own neighborhood”, a minor variant on “go back where you came from” are particularly ironic in a place where almost no one started out here.
8 Brenda from Flatbush // Jul 11, 2008 at 10:31 am
Agree it’s an odd comment from a “typical Park Sloper” given the PC atmosphere amongst the yups…my first reaction was to wonder, not ‘Was she drunk?”, but, “Was she mentally ill?” Grossly impaired judgment without obvious signs of intoxication often equals a DSM IV diagnosis. My mother got to a point where she was picking fights with toddlers in supermarkets, and she “looked perfectly normal.”
9 BakiShamil // Jul 11, 2008 at 11:00 am
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