Kathryn Graves Yale black graduate student subjected to vitriolic racist rant along Manhattan, NYC streets. Tormentor identity remains unknown.
Viral video has shown a black graduate student being the target of a middle-aged white woman launching a racist tirade against her on a Manhattan street, using the N-word and calling her an ‘ape.’
Yale PhD student Kathryn Graves, 27, was walking in Midtown in her Black Lives Matter T-shirt Saturday afternoon when the woman began shouting at her.
‘Obama’s f—ing d–k right next to his ape f—ing wife,’ the unidentified woman screamed at Graves in footage she posted to Instagram under the handle, @kat_gravez.
After making monkey-like noises at the Brown University grad, the woman — clutching a case of Natural Ice beer — appears to come just inches away from her as she repeatedly calls her a ‘n—er ape.’
‘What’s the matter, you got time to do your f—ing pink a– f—ing hair, you n—er Obama f—ing ape,’ the woman says, before turning to finally cross Third Avenue.
Targeted because she was black
It only dawned on Graves who had remained calm — later what she’d had undergone.
‘I kind of blocked off how hurtful the words were and more was just thinking pragmatically,’ the psychology student told via the nypost.
‘Before I even started to emotionally process what was going on, I just knew I had to record it’ and ‘try and figure out what to do if she tries to attack me,’ she told the tabloid, fearing she could have had a hidden weapon, too.
‘I recorded her and she just went off … there was nothing on my end that preempted this, other than me being there,’ she said. ‘I have never [before] had someone just spew hatred in my face.’
Graves — who was wearing a mask — said it was only later that she also realized she was put under the added threat of catching the coronavirus with her racist abuser getting so close without any face coverings.
She was also pained to see people walking past and not intervening.
‘She was speaking pretty loudly, it was very clear what she was saying, and the idea that … no one felt the need to intervene at all — that really bothers me a lot,’ she said, calling it ‘hard to watch.’
‘You must be actively anti-racist — it’s not enough to just not be racist,’
Graves believes it highlights a general issue of Americans thinking it is enough to just be non-racist.
‘You must be actively anti-racist — it’s not enough to just not be racist,’ she said.
She has since sent the full video to the NYPD and has been in touch with officers and another potential victim of the same woman, Graves said.
She believes the abuser is likely homeless, but insists neither that nor possible mental health issues are excuses because ‘racism is not a symptom of either of those things.’
‘I have no desire to see this woman like locked up,” Graves said, saying she’d prefer the woman get mental health treatment — while still fearing she could be “a risk to public safety.’
‘If her hands had been empty she could have hit me. It could escalate at some point,’ Graves warned.
‘If nothing happens, this woman could be dangerous.’
