Man, black people can’t even park in peace without being harassed. Philadelphia police have launched an investigation into a racist note that was left on the windshield of a car a black woman had parked on a predominantly white block in the city’s Mayfair neighborhood, Fox 29 reports.
The note read, “Nigger, do not park around here again, bitch,” and was signed, “KKK.”
The woman, who asked to be identified only as Lima and declined to show her face, said that at first she was hoping the sick note was a joke.
“I was shocked,” she said. “At first I thought it was a joke or a prank, and I was just thinking that someone would come out laughing, but then I looked at it again and I was like, I can’t believe this is happening around here.”
Lima said that she lives on a nearby street but the traffic there is heavy and parking is tight, so many residents opt to park around the corner in what the news station describes as a predominantly white neighborhood.
Lima did just that Sunday night, but on Monday morning she found the note.
“I was scared,” she said. “And I was thinking, maybe they followed me or maybe they know where I live, and I don’t want to fear for my life that somebody would do something to me if I was to park around there again.”
Bernadette Waites, Lima’s next-door neighbor, also parked around the corner on the other street Sunday night, as she often does. On her way to work on Monday, she found that her right front tire was flat, with a nail puncturing the tread. Since seeing Lima’s note, she’s not certain that the nail was just bad luck after all.
“That’s racist,” she said of the message. “It’s hateful. In this climate—in this day and age—that’s intolerable.”
Lima says that her mother parks on the same street all the time and has also had nails in her tires; she’s had two flats in the last couple of weeks alone.
“I just want it to stop,” Lima said. “But that we’ve been living around people who have been preying on us the whole time, it’s really sad.”
Read more at Fox 29.