“Immigrant!” the customer shouted at the cashier. “Trump!” she shrieked. Antonia Carew-Watts froze in line at the drugstore in Manhattan as the woman in front of her shouted a stream of abuse at the young female Rite Aid employee. Not all the conversation was audible, but Carew-Watts could hear that the cashier had an accent and the customer threatened to get her fired. Carew-Watts was shocked and angered, she recalls, but remained silent.



“Somehow I wasn’t able to stand up for that cashier. I said nothing, I was a coward. No one else said anything either,” said Carew-Watts, an attorney.

Carew-Watts’ lack of action bothered her. Why didn’t she know how to respond? Why didn’t she jump to help the young cashier? So when she heard about a self-defense and conflict resolution class being organized in New York for women rattled about their safety post-election, she jumped at the chance.



“I thought, I need to face up to the fact that I may be confronting situations like this a lot more, where I and other people are less safe and I need to step up as a citizen because I don’t want what happened in the election to change my city for the worse,” she said. “I figured the self-defense class would give me some tools to deal with those situations.”

In the aftermath of the election, incidents like the one Carew-Watts witnessed have spiked. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently reported that 867 hate incidents occurred in the 10 days after the election, a phenomenon it partly blamed on Donald Trump’s rhetoric. Now, self-defense trainers from around the country are reporting a parallel surge in demand for their courses from people who worry they may be targeted – and want to protect themselves.



“I’ve had more demand for self-defense seminars in the last two months than I’ve seen in 30 years,” said Joe Chandler, who runs Street Smart Self Defense in San Diego, California.

I’ve had more demand for self defense seminars in the last two months than I’ve seen in 30 years Joe Chandler

Chandler says he’s taught eight group seminars and 10 private lessons in the past few weeks, including instructing staff at a biotech corporation, women at an organic dog-food company, workers at a local museum, a Muslim group, and an LGBT group, he said.

“I’ve never had anything close to that amount in a two-month period,” he said.

Martha Thompson, an instructor at self-defense specialist Impact Chicago, said inquiries coming in to her company had multiplied five-fold.

“The calls started right after the election. Most of them are from women frightened by the political environment. One woman called after someone pulled up alongside her in the car and pointed a gun at her, then drove off,” she said.

Pro-Trump supporters outside the Republican national convention in Cleveland. Nearly 900 incidents of hate and intolerance were recorded across the US in the days after the election. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

In Miami, Gui Valente of the Brazilian jiu-jitsu self defense school Valente Brothers said he was getting more calls, not just from women but from parents wanting their children to learn how to deal with bullying and from Jewish patrons nervous about increased antisemitism and potential terrorist attacks. “Inquiries are up about 20%,” he said.



Philly Self Defense and Gracie Academy, two self-defense centers in Philadelphia, also both reported an uptick.

Classes at the various schools typically teach strategies to de-escalate confrontations, fight back where necessary and engage the assistance of other members of the public.

After her introductory class in New York, Carew-Watts said she was keen to learn more and felt her confidence growing.

“I still don’t know if I would engage the aggressive customer directly, but I might have stepped forward and stood between her and the cashier. I could have acted as a buffer, instead of being a deer in the headlights,” she said.

Being a black person in America, I’ve experienced hate speech my whole life Pia Wilson

Pia Wilson, a playwright from Brooklyn, also attended the class, taught by Brooklyn-based Prepare Inc.

“Being a black person in America, I’ve experienced hate speech my whole life. I’ve been called the N-word in the street, or a bitch, so I don’t feel more threatened by Trump, but I know many others are feeling vulnerable,” she said.

Her biggest takeaway from the class was that confrontation is not necessarily the best course of action.

“My initial instinct is to match the level of aggression from the person who is confronting me. If they start cursing, I start cursing; if they step forward, I step forward,” she said.

“[But] it’s sometimes better to avoid conflict and experience ‘winning’ by walking away, not trying to teach some dude a lesson – I don’t owe him that. But if someone actually grabs me I hope I would be able to fight back,” she said.

Toni Weinbeck of the Brooklyn Park police department instructing Tuere Tidwell at a self-defense class for Muslim women. Photograph: Nausheena Hussain

In Minnesota, community organizer Nausheena Hussain arranged a self-defense class in Minneapolis attended by 40 Muslim women in October, with a followup class scheduled for 10 December, after she observed a spike in hate crimes against women wearing their religious headscarves, or hijab, during the election campaign.

“When candidates’ rhetoric gets really offensive towards Muslims, it trickles down to ordinary people and we are hearing hatred in public and seeing this kind of vigilante action,” she said, citing recent incidents in the state such the Muslim woman who was hit in the face with a beer mug, and a woman who pointed a gun at a Muslim couple who were sitting in their car in Brooklyn Park. Days before the election, an unidentified vandal sprayed “Isis” over a Muslim student group’s logo on a Twin Cities bridge.

In class, the instructor, police sergeant Toni Weinbeck, encouraged the women to have their phones ready to record incidents and also, if followed, suggested they drive to the nearest police precinct, where there are likely to be security cameras, Hussain said.



The next class is going to teach the women more about repelling physical attacks, including attempts to grab their headscarves.

“Everyone was very interested in how to throw punches – that’s another stereotype about Muslim women broken,” Hussain said.