Acclaimed musician Lido Pimienta has shared multiple social media updates about being attacked outside her home over the weekend. As Pitchfork points out, on Saturday Pimienta, a native of Colombia now based in Toronto, tweeted about an encounter that day with a white woman who allegedly attacked her with a shopping cart on the street in front of her children. “My face is all scratched my body all bruised,” Pimienta wrote. “I hit her too to defend myself.” Her Twitter thread included footage of the altercation.

Pimienta was concerned that the alleged attacker was threatening to call the police, fearing how they would respond to a conflict between a white person and an immigrant minority. An Instagram post Sunday elaborated, “The p*lice never showed up, thankfully, which was my/our only concern.” She further assured concerned parties that “My children and I are OK, at home, safe and healing. At this point I can only hope that the other person implicated thinks twice before they try to attack or target someone like me.”

Pimienta’s 2017 release La Papessa won the Polaris Prize as the year’s best Canadian album. Her most recent album was 2020’s Miss Colombia. Read her full account of the incident below.

Saturday:

My children just witnessed a white woman hitting me with a shopping cart at a cross walk…she insists on calling the police even though all the neighbours saw what happened…..I don’t know what to do…..my face is all scratched my body all bruised, I hit her too to defend myself

I am so thankful to my neighbours for helping me and getting her off of me and forcing her to leave

I’m really short n out of shape but I managed to keep her off for some time but once she hit my head and scratched me in front of my kids I surrendered, I didn’t want them to see

I really hope she doesn’t call the cops, she saw where I live, all the neighbours screamed at her…holy shit I’m so glad my neighbours saw everything and that my kids are ok

Should I get a COVID test?

Sunday:

Hello just here to thank everyone for the words of support and love after what happened to me yesterday

It’s been over 12 hours and some of you are concerned because I have not posted since: The p*lice never showed up, thankfully, which was my/our only concern.

I am no stranger to a white person using me as their punching bag, and I am no stranger to having p*lice knocking on my door to tell me to *go back to my country* if ‘I don’t like it’- all of that is sadly expected at this point…

But life has a way to test us, and yesterday was my turn. I never want to choose violence-but I had to defend myself and so, I did.

My children and I are OK, at home, safe and healing. At this point I can only hope that the other person implicated thinks twice before they try to attack or target someone like me.

I hope they have the same if not more of the adequate and personal support that I have around me, so they can heal too

Thank you all for checking in, love and light from me to you, always