The Clutch of Fear
“It was subtle, but it was clear what they were doing,” says Anderson, who’s encountered this kind of defensive maneuver before. Women clutching their purses around black men isn’t just an issue of black and white. Many Latino, Asian, and black women do the same thing–often with less subtlety.
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Not everyone shares Chandler’s opinion. “When you ask a white woman why she is clutching her purse in the presence of a black man, she says she’s not clutching it, just rearranging the contents,” says Heather Dalmage, an assistant professor of sociology at Roosevelt University. “To admit to her racism would mean questioning her own identity.
Anderson admits these fears are not unfounded. “It’s an issue. The women aren’t making this up out of whole cloth. There are black men out there stealing purses and wallets from handbags,” he says.
Retired Harvard psychiatrist Chester Pierce refers to this type of treatment as “micro insults” or “micro aggression.” Examples include having the police pull over black male drivers for no apparent reason; black security guards following black men in stores to deflect charges of racial profiling; and women clutching their purses when they see a black man because they assume he’s a thief. “These are some of the things black men have to put up with every day,” Bell says.
Hairstylist Richard Lewis Jr. says sometimes he loses his patience. “It makes me angry when women grab their purses when they see a black man,” he says. “Sometimes I just want to say ‘Boo!’”
