WhiteWomanWalking: A New Source of National Racism

Yeah, so this black guy is complaining that white women do not move out of his way when he's walking (actually, he specifies that he thinks that correct walking etiquette is for both parties to slightly deviate out of each other's way), and the New York Times thinks this is proof that most white women in New York City are racist.

Well, most progressives are racist, more racist than almost anybody, but put that off for now.

Back in college, a friend of mine, who was a giant, and I don't mean fat, I mean over six and a half feet tall of threatening muscle and bone, was always complaining that girls just did not bother to get out of his way at all. He was always the one who'd have to change course. He was annoyed, not just at the discourtesy (I imagine he'd agree with with the "we should both move a half step out of each other's way" rule), but because, as he would say -- being a giant and all -- "What do these 90 pound girls think would happen if I just plowed forth like they do? Who do they imagine would end up on the ground in such a collision?"

I've been noticing this a lot myself lately, and just said to myself -- well, thought to myself, but thought it so hard that it was pre-verbal, ready to be spoken aloud -- "Am I the only person who adjusts his path to avoid collisions with people walking the other way now?"

I did get annoyed at frequently having to make adjustments to avoid collisions that, as far as I could tell, no one else on the street seemed to have much concern about.

And I remembered my friend's 20+ year old complaint.

I'm not sure if the Walking Offenders were mostly women or white. Well, I know they weren't mostly white. Mostly they were Hispanic (just the neighborhood I was in when I noticed it-- not saying all hispanics do this. Just on this day, at this hour.)

Anyway, based on my limited experience:

Yeah, girls in particular seem to not really care about the whole "Colliding bodies" thing when walking down the street. Maybe it's just that men naturally get out of the way, and so they've tended to not even notice the need for small deviations in course.

And maybe men are just better about this whole "we both yield" thing because we know, if someone does not yield, men tend to take that as a challenge -- I own you; I dominate you; what are you gonna do about it, bitch, and wut dat mouth for? -- and we guys know that that sort of thing can quickly escalate in confrontation we probably weren't particularly looking for.

But it doesn't seem to be a racial thing. I'm white, and a lot of nonwhite people seem to be determined to walk a straight line whether someone's on the exact same straight line or not.

It is annoying, thought. And I, much like my giant of a college pal, did begin wondering: Maybe I should just lay down a marker here and walk right on through these other people, these non-yielders.

But anyway, just thought you should know, in addition to Mansplaining, we now have to worry about Whitewomanwalking.

BTW, one day in college, my giant friend was a bit lit up, and two guys --smaller than him, as most men are -- were doing the same no-polite-yielding thing, so out of nowhere, as they approached their inevitable collision, he did not merely permit the collision to go ahead as scheduled, but actually cocked back his hip and shoulder and delivered a full-body, full-strength, head-on body-check to one of the guys, center chest, while, just to make sure the guy knew it was completely intentional, exclaiming "BOOM!"

The guy went fucking flying with this grinning giant yelling "BOOM!" as he spun around the sidewalk and then flopped on to his ass.

My giant friend just said something like "I want to do that literally every single day."

Anyway, people should probably have a better sense of their surroundings and greater politeness in pedestrian yielding because my large friend is still out there and probably delivering the occasional painful shock of Street Decorum to people who annoy him.

posted by Ace at 04:47 PM

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