Kwolanne Felix

As social distancing becomes the new norm, it seems that street harassment did not get the memo. While jogging at the park, filming videos on College Walk, and picking up a salad from Sweetgreen, I have encountered whistles, awkward flirting, car honks, and raunchy comments that make me feel the same way I did when I was a lanky 10-year-old girl experiencing street harassment for the first time. The same feelings of unsafety, betrayal of my body, embarrassment from the attention, and inappropriate hypersexuality have washed over me. As I continue to navigate life in my body, as a Black woman, I’m often reminded of those feelings.

Lately, I’ve been reframing the unique features of my body as gifts from generations before me. I imagine my smile as belonging to my ancestors who found reasons to smile despite great adversities. I wonder if my back that allows me to stand tall belonged to men who refused to cower in fear. Did my hips belong to women who found rhythm in the crashing waves of the Caribbean Sea?

Prem Thakker is a junior in Columbia College studying history, hailing from Grand Forks, North Dakota. If you would like to hang out, he’d love to take a walk in Morningside Park, share a meal at a dining hall, or toss a Frisbee with you. You can also find him on Twitter @prem_thakker. His column, Colon, Closed Parentheses, runs alternate Mondays.

Behind the powerful protest pictures, moving speeches, and glamorous social media posts, social justice work is actually hard. Without the right balance, social justice work can get downright ugly and result in sleepless nights, tension among organizers, anxiety from traumatic issues, and burn out. It is a give and take relationship, in which the work can easily take more than it gives.

What you saw: A white man harassing a group of black students while shouting “White people built the modern world!” As his shrill voice fills your ears, you are surprised that racism exists on your beloved college campus. You discuss it over a meal with friends the next day, but as you focus on finals, the events in the video are quickly forgotten.