‘We don’t want to be painted as aggressive just for existing in a space’

A longtime Yellowknife resident wants to talk about the microaggressions Black women face following an incident at the city’s fieldhouse.

Inemesit Graham said she was exercising with a group of five other Black women on October 10, alternating between walking around the track and lifting weights. While they were standing near the weight area, she said a white man physically pushed past one of her friends to grab some weights.

“She looked at him and then she turned around and we’re just like, we’re just going to continue doing our thing,” Graham said, noting the man could have asked her friend to move.

After walking around the track and returning to the weight area, Graham said the group saw the man had moved the bench where they had placed their belongings to use for bench presses. She said he could have used another bench that was free instead or spoken with the group.

Graham said their belongings were strewn about and there was water on the floor as one of the women’s water bottles had been broken. When another woman asked the man where her face towel was, she said he responded, “that’s not my problem.”

That’s when Graham said she decided to start recording with her phone.

In a video posted to Graham’s Instagram page, a man can be seen doing bench presses while the women standing around him can be heard saying “you saw us working out here so this is intentional,” “just pure nonsense,” and “you don’t do shit like that.”

The man then gets up to grab another pair of weights and Graham can be seen moving the bench.

“In my head, I’m like, I guess we can just move people’s things,” she told Cabin Radio.

“This is violent,” the man can be heard saying. “You cannot treat me this way. I’m going to report you to the police.”

Graham said the man walked away and complained to staff that they were not sharing the public space.

Graham said a staff member – who happened to be an Indigenous woman – came over to the group and they explained their side of the story. Graham said the man ignored the woman when she tried to talk to him before telling her to “desist.”

The video shows the man telling a woman, “I am asking you to desist, desist immediately,” as he does biceps curls. The woman then tells him she wants to speak to him to understand what is going on.

Graham said the incident ended with the man telling the group he would report them to the police and leaving. She said no one in the group knows who the man was.

She said she decided to post video of the incident online as she did not know if the man would contact the police and what he would tell them had happened.

A caption for one video states: “This is what it means to exist as Black women in predominantly white spaces.”

Cabin Radio could not establish the identity of the man and so was unable to reach him for comment.

Neither the RCMP nor the City of Yellowknife, which operates the fieldhouse, responded to Cabin Radio’s requests for comment prior to publication.

Respect and dignity

Graham said the group of Black women has worked out at the fieldhouse every week or two since August. While the recent incident was the most extreme, she said it’s not the first time they have faced issues.

“We’ve had people come and kind-of seem irritated that we’re there in a group, but it’s something we just try and press through. We’ve had things happen that we weren’t really able to articulate, but sometimes it feels like people are poking at us and people are messing with us,” she said.

“I think what is happening is that people see a group of Black women in a public space and for whatever reason, they feel uncomfortable.”

Rather than continuing to go to the walking track at the fieldhouse, which is free, Graham said the group plans to move its workouts to a private, paid space.

“We don’t want to be painted as aggressive just for existing in a space,” she said. “We don’t want to be painted as violent just for responding to harm.”

Graham said she believes the recent incident was “racially underlined” as the man’s response was to accuse the women of being violent and threaten to call the police. She linked that to a stereotype of Black women being angry and violent, while research has indicated Black people in Canada face more negative outcomes in interactions with police.

Graham explained the term misogynoir describes the mix of racism and misogyny that Black women experience.

In a statement to Cabin Radio, NWT Black Advocacy Coalition president Ambe Chenemu said the group was “saddened” to hear about the incident and that “people still feel comfortable treating others this way.”

Chenemu said everyone “deserves to be treated with respect and dignity.”

“Black and racialized people have every right to be here, to use community spaces and to go about their lives without being singled out or made to feel unwelcome,” he wrote.

“We all have a part to play in making our community a place where everyone feels they belong.”

‘You’re always having to explain your existence’

Graham is part of a group called Black Women of Yellowknife that formed late last year. She said the group aims to create a safe space for Black women to feel seen and heard. They get together once a month to socialize.

“We had the discussion of saying that we’re all feeling lonely and isolated but we’re all in Yellowknife together, and so perhaps we could create a group where we could come together and help support each other,” she said.

Graham said many women in the group have shared the microaggressions they experience in their daily lives.

Microaggressions are subtle comments or actions that express prejudice toward a member of a marginalized group, whether intentional or not.

Graham gave the example of a white swimming instructor making a comment about a Black girl’s braids, asking if she was allowed to get them wet or how often she washes her hair.

“There’s comments like that, that we know aren’t meant in a malicious way,” she said. “But, for a Black person, when you get questions like that when you’re just trying to exist, it’s a microaggression because it can feel dehumanizing, like you’re always having to explain your existence.”

Graham said racism is not an individual issue but part of a historical pattern. She said it can be unintentional and the result of unchecked biases.

Some people have been upset about Black Women of Yellowknife, Graham said, and have questioned why Black women in the city need a separate group. She explained that many spaces and groups are geared to white people by default, who do not experience the racism and same challenges that Black people face.

She gave the example that before LJJ Barber Shop opened, she had difficulty finding a barbershop in Yellowknife that would cut her son’s hair.

“These are experiences that people don’t know Black people are having,” she said.

Graham said people have to be willing to question themselves, including why a group of Black women makes them uncomfortable, and whether they have considered what Black women need to feel safe in spaces.