A Black somatics instructor who was doing yoga exercises in a public park filmed the moments when she was approached by a white woman who assumed she was homeless.
The Houston-based yoga teacher posted the video on TikTok, where it went viral.
In the caption, she explained that she was doing some exercises in a public park where she also hosts yoga classes when a woman approached her to ask whether she was unhoused.
“Do you have a place to stay? Are you on the streets?” the woman is heard asking.
“Nah,” the yoga instructor responds.
“No? Do you have a place to stay?” the woman asks again.
“I do,” the instructor states.
The woman suddenly realizes her assumption was wrong after seeing the Black woman’s yoga mat.
“Oh, look, you’re doing yoga?!” the woman asks.
“Yeah,” the yoga teacher plainly states.
As the woman nervously switches gears and segues into a conversation about the weather, the yoga instructor asks why she took a photo of her.
The woman says she’ll delete the picture she took, then explains that her neighborhood is “trying to get a handle” on how many unhoused people are roaming the community since a homeless shelter is about to be built nearby.
“If you’re homeless, I want to call the city, not to do anything bad to you, but just, there’s someone who needs help. I personally, I can’t really help you,” the woman states.
After the instructor asserts, once again, that she isn’t homeless, she points to a man off-camera and suggests the woman take a picture of him, since he might be unhoused. The woman confirms that her neighbors have already taken photos of him.
She then stammers out an apology to the instructor and tries to make pleasant conversation before walking away.
The yoga teacher’s video garnered more than 600,000 views on TikTok and was reshared on other platforms, where it drew numerous reactions and comments about the microaggressions in the interaction between the woman and the instructor.
“So in short she was going to find a way to call some sort of authority on you for existing in a public space…” one person commented.
“To assume someone is unhoused, take pics, approach her when she doesn’t appear to be bothering anyone, anything or doesn’t appear to be having a medical emergency, then standing corrected and still speaking as if there is no way she could belong to the same neighborhood/community is cringy,” an Instagram user wrote. “This happens too often to black and brown people daily in stores, predominantly white neighborhoods etc. … (The yoga instructor) is in a public park. So what if she was unhoused until a law is broken, loitering, soliciting, or someone is in danger leave people alone!”
“Racist microaggressions come in many forms,” someone else added.
Many didn’t buy the woman’s reason for filming the yoga instructor.
“She is lying. She sending them pics back to complain about the loitering,” one person wrote. “Racism, disguised as altruism. We see it every day.”
