To the man with the horrible camouflage print pants at the 169^th Street stop,

I want to tell you that I bought my skirt on a whim from Goodwill on a Wednesday after my physical for a date that never happened. The date that never happened was with a boy that I only call by his last name and him not showing up made me cry and feel bad about myself. I thought that I was too ugly and wasn’t worth common courtesy. That Friday night took me back to when I was in middle school and I felt inferior to the white girls in my classes and the ones that I was friends with. That experience took me back to when I was reading Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye in my AP English Literature class and I read the paragraph about how Pecola Breedlove and her family lived and festered in their ugliness. However, that Goodwill skirt made me feel beautiful whenever I put it on.

I want to tell you a little bit about me, too. I’m not from New York City. I’m from a small, predominately white, town in southern Connecticut. Most kids at my school choose to either go to Sacred Heart University, Southern Connecticut State University, or the University of Connecticut. I chose to attend Saint John’s University, which is a mere four to six blocks away from the subway station where we crossed paths. I knew that I was outgrowing Connecticut when I got into my junior year of high school. I was always attracted to New York City, especially Manhattan, but I knew that my grades, my major, and my overall campus preferences were not cut out for a Manhattan school. So, I chose Saint John’s, a school in that’s in what I like to call the “ass crack of Manhattan.” Public transportation is new to me. Yes, they do have a bus system in Connecticut but in the town I live in everyone has a car, so bus stops are few and far between. When I got here, I told myself that now I needed to use public transportation to do anything and have learned to become accustomed to it. By the time we interacted with one another, I was beginning to feel like a true New Yorker.

You took that feeling away from me.

Man with the horrible camouflage print pants at the 169^th Street stop, I loathe you and I pity you at the same time.

I loathe you because you took it upon yourself to lift up my skirt and take a photo of my ass as I was boarding the subway car.

I pity you because you are such a coward that you ran up the steps to street level, with your phone in your hand, and covering your face since you think that I am such an idiot that I was not watching you stand against a pillar and wait for the train to come. I want you to know that on that train a man with a baby, a boy with a blue shirt, and a woman with a floral scarf around her neck helped me as I was crying and in a state of shock to get off the train and call the police to report you. Now we are both on record with the New York Police Department Transit Special Victims Unit. According to the detective on this case, this is probably not your first time sexually assaulting a woman before. If I am not your first victim then I am saddened to hear that women were either too ashamed or scared to report you or that the New York City Police Department has let you out of custody to continue to do this to women trying to get from point A to point B. You’re going to be found and arrested soon, by the way, because I am not ashamed to pester my detective on retrieving the camera footage from the subway station and I am not afraid to continue to keep looking for you on the streets or even at the subway station itself.

Although you took something away from me, you simultaneously gave me something else—a megaphone.

Yes, my reaction was delayed to turn around and see you lifting up my skirt and taking a photo of my ass. Yes, I was too quiet when I called you a “pervert.” Yes, I should have gotten off that train and followed you up those stairs. No, I will not be ashamed of this incident and keep quiet about it. You gave me the strength to step forward amongst other brave women to proudly say “me too.” You gave me the strength to give a voice to the women who are sexually assaulted on the subway and are afraid or even ashamed to report it. No, I will not let you be able to take away the feeling of being beautiful when I put on my skirt from Goodwill. And, no, I will not forget you.

I will also not forget the man with the baby, the woman that had a long day, the woman with a floral scarf, and the college boy with the blue shirt for their extreme generosity. When the shock of what you had done settled in, I began to cry. The man with the baby gave me a hug, told me the time I had boarded the train, and put his number in my phone to give me instructions on what to do after I got off at the next stop and to check up on me. The college boy with the blue shirt got off at the next stop with me, rubbed my back as I called the police, waited for the police to come with me, and even rode to the station with me. They both showed me compassion and reassured me that there are men that are not pigs and do not approve of such disgusting cowardice.

I pray you never do anything like this again to a woman.

Sincerely,

Jada M.