United States: Racial And Misogynistic Remarks Towards Journalist Brianna Hamblin Are Harassment Which Need To Be Addressed. CFWIJ Condemns The Incident And Extends Support
Location: United States, Rochester
Date: July 26, 2021
Spectrum News 1 reporter Brianna Hamblin, was harassed by multiple men while on assignment, while she was covering a story on access to healthy nutrition in the city. The journalist was targeted with deeply misogynist remarks which exoticized her race and ethnicity. Brianna took to Twitter in the aftermath to register her disgust at her experience highlighting the everyday sexism that women journalists, especially women journalists of colour, have to face while doing their jobs.
While preparing for a televised report on the access to nutritious food in Rochester, Brianna was complimented by a passerby on her looks, to which Brianna responded with polite acknowledgment. However, the situation spiralled quickly out of control when other men piled on the moment with deeply sexualized and racist remarks about her appearance. After a short discussion about her work, one of the men commented, “See that’s why I can’t be left alone with a Black woman. Or a mulatto, s---. Cause I can’t stand these f---ing white girls.”
When Brianna attempted to shut this conversation down, a man insisted on pushing this reprehensible behaviour even further, “You are sexy as f---,” he went on to say.
Brianna took to her social media account to speak about her experience and record her anger at the incident. She shared the footage on her Twitter profile, claiming, “There are A LOT of things wrong with this.”
WARNING: CRUDE LANGUAGE
— Brianna Hamblin (@BriReports) July 23, 2021
Being hit on and harassed as a woman, especially as a woman reporter out in the field, happens so often you learn how to roll with it or ignore it. This time it happened to be recorded only seconds before my hit. There are A LOT of things wrong with this. pic.twitter.com/5Ok58Vm7e0
In the thread that followed this tweet, Brianna not only called out the entitlement men feel towards femme bodies, she also emphasized on how exoticizing and fetishizing her race is not a compliment, but in fact a disgusting manifestation of racism.
3.The audacity of the things men say to me never ceases to amaze me. What makes you think women want to be talked to that way? In no way is this endearing. It’s uncomfortable. It’s gross.
— Brianna Hamblin (@BriReports) July 23, 2021
The Coalition For Women In Journalism condemns the incident in the strongest possible terms. We are aware of the challenges women of colour have to face in the field of journalism, and we would like to acknowledge that this attack was not merely sexist but it was also deeply, deeply racist. Sexualizing women of an entire race is not a compliment and is indicative of the dehumanization of that particular group in the mind of the harasser. We extend our solidarity to Brianna.
The CFWIJ strongly condemns the police brutality against journalists. We demand the immediate return of the press cards seized from the security forces. Policies to intimidate journalists should be abandoned, and journalism should be practiced under the criteria of freedom of the press.
If you have been harassed or abused in any way, and please report the incident by using the following form.