Woman Harassed Online over Tweet about Assault by Homeless Man

A 20 years old black woman, “Jah,” from New York city, has been subjected to a relentless campaign of harassment, mostly by “progressive, leftist and/or marxist men,” after she complained on social media that she was physically assaulted by a homeless man. On October 9, Jah was on her way to work and stopped for breakfast at a Dunkin’ Donuts, when a homeless man allegedly asked her to buy him a donut, which she couldn't afford. She says that the man became aggressive and hit her, left the store, waited for her outside and resumed the abuse.

When she finally managed to get to her train, Jah started typing a tweet about what had happened, which she posted in a short thread when she arrived at work, a “10 hour shift.” She got off work to find out that her story got over 3k likes but that there was also a “slow but steady influx of male communists, anarchists, and liberals” in her replies, harassing her.

The male harassers were making fun of her, calling her a liar and saying that she deserved the assault. Without phone service in the subway and tired from work, Jah went home and straight to bed. The next day, she allegedly woke up to “hundreds, if not thousands” of rape and death threats from leftist men on Twitter and Instagram.

The pile-on appeared to have started after a “communist man, with a substantial following” had tweeted out a screenshot of her tweet, together with a screenshot of her full profile. “For that alone,” Jay says, “they deemed me a genocidal fascist for saying I hated homeless men after being assaulted by one that same day and countless times before, and then for daring to want to protect myself from inevitable future incidents of harassment while navigating NYC subways.”

The online harassment went on for several days, Jah says, adding that the attacks turned even worse after these men found her social media activity concerning her radical feminist views.

“They began threatening to doxx me, rape me and my mother, get me fired from my job, and get me expelled from school. And every single one of the men making these threats was a progressive, leftist and/or marxist,” Jah told 4W. “All these death and rape threats were overwhelmingly from men who claimed to value women’s rights.” Due to the relentless attacks, Jah made her Twitter account private because “eventually, it became too much” when she received private messages from men telling her that they wanted to kill and dismember her.

Attacked by a homeless man on her way to work

The young black lesbian, who is a full-time student working on minimum wages, claims she was attacked at a Dunkin’ Donuts nearby the train station she uses to go to work. She described the incident with the homeless man to 4W:

“I really could not afford it,” Jah said “and on top of that, after countless experiences of sexual and physical harassment by homeless men in NYC, after having been accommodating to them, I was completely fed up.” When the homeless man heard Jah saying no to buying him a donut, he became aggressive and started “yelling and cursing” at her.

“The cashier directed me to pay at the register beside her, but as I stepped to pay with my phone, the homeless man got in front of me, turned around and yelled at me,” Jah recounted. Initially scared, she started telling the man that she was just trying to pay for her order, but before she finished her sentence, he hit her in the head, leaving her, other customers and the staff “stunned.”

“And then I lost it,” said Jah. She yelled at him to get away from her and started looking for a pocket knife she carries for protection, after having survived several previous assaults by men - including other homeless men in her neighborhood. She says that the man then left, and she finished paying for her order. But when Jah left the store, the homeless man, who was waiting for her outside, confronted her again.

“He started walking towards me, cursing at me and saying how he was going to kill me, and that ''I was a woman and he was a man so I should know my place”. At this point, Jah says that she took her pocket knife out, told him to not come near her, and ran to her train, while he “yelled every misogynistic slur in the book” towards her. “I kept looking over my shoulder the rest of the way to work,” Jah recounted. With a mix of “sadness and anger,” she shared her ordeal on Twitter, but she soon was targeted by hundreds of men who, according to Jah, were forcing her to “frame her trauma” in a way that is “palatable for men.”

“I don't care how many men try to silence me,” Jah said. “Despite how crass I was in my tweet expressing my anger, sadness and frustration, I am not wrong in the slightest.” Jah also said she is taking action against her harassers - she has reported the harassment to her school and spoke to a lawyer to “move forward with legal action.”

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