♥️♥️♥️Shoutout to the staff of the hotel I stayed at for expertly de-escalating a Karen situation!
♥️♥️♥️And shoutout to the white hotel guests that stuck around to make sure that hotel security heard exactly what she was trying to do. My favorite comment: "Wow! A Karen situation in real life! I've only ever seen these online! This is surreal! What is she thinking?"
End result, yours truly did not get kicked out of the hotel for no reason, and feels slightly better about the state of the world.
@mekkaokereke Finally, some white folks got it right. I’m sorry you had the situation at all, but it does feel good that it was handled correctly and that some white folks stepped up.
I was standing in line to ask the front desk a question. I was masked up, and giving the person talking to the front desk attendant plenty of space (about 20ft). So much space that a man didn't realize I was in line, and stood in line behind the person talking to the attendant.
I said "Sorry, but I am in line! But don't worry I just have a very quick question."
The man didn't understand me, and said indignantly "I'm in a hurry too! Even if it is a quick question! But fine! Whatever! Go ahead!"
I said to the man "No, you don't get it. I'm not asking to cut you in line. I'm saying that I was already waiting in line when you got here. You cut me!"
The man said very loudly, "Well, I didn't know that! But I already let you go in front of me!"
I said, "How are you mad at me? There's no need to get upset here. Just relax! It's a nice day!" I shook my head in confusion. The man and I switched places.
At this point, the conversation with me and the man was over.
Security shows up, and she says that I'm intimidating her, standing too close to her, shouting at her, etc.
Security listened patiently to her story, and the other guests told what really happened.♥️
Security says, "Ma'am. We have security cameras and I saw everything that happened. What you said is not accurate. And...you initiated verbal contact with him? I'm not kicking him out, I'm not kicking you out, and I'm not kicking the other guest out. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
@mekkaokereke lordy lord! What an absolute weirdo! Clearly someone who is in the habit of abusing her white womanhood and status to take her feelings out on others.
Also, kinda nice to hear that people are responding in a more helpful and responsive manner all around. Like, the fact that the white bystanders were primed to not just let things play out in a bad way matters and that's good to hear because I know it often hasn't been that way.
@mekkaokereke I’m glad security was doing their job properly. But the front desk shouldn’t have called security on you but on her…she initiated contact and was abusive to you. What a racist b!tch!!
Well, the front desk acted as they have to. Once someone asks for security, they have to call them.🤷🏿♂️
This is similar to how if someone calls 911 on a Black person minding their business, cops have to respond. Most cops hate receiving these calls! Because they know that they have to make contact with an innocent Black person that was just minding their business.
The cops have to ID the suspect, but the law says that the suspect doesn't have to give ID. Lose/lose for the cop.🙂🙃
@mekkaokereke
I've always suspected that these Karens fantasize about calling security/police on [insert minorities of choice] the same way that gun nuts fantasize about murdering a "bad guy with a gun." Your Karen was just jonesing to butt in and escalate.
Sometimes people really are intimidated by me. I'm a big dude! Trust me when I tell you that those folk act very differently.
This woman was not intimidated.
She wanted to use situational power to tell me to shut up, and the threat of force to get me kicked out of the hotel or subjected to physical violence.
She was genuinely surprised that most of the white folk that saw this interaction were appaled and disgusted by her actions. She was confused that she couldn't weaponize hotel security.
@mekkaokereke I've seen a woman try to use this kind of "I felt intimidated" tactics against my father, who's a tall skinny white dude. She was a roommate of my brother and his girlfriend, things got weird, they tried to ask her to move out and things got weirder, and so they asked my father over to see if he could help. She decided to file for a restraining order against my father, got a temporary one and a court date, but got laughed out of court as nothing he'd done had ever been intimidating
@mekkaokereke so she saw all the Karen memes, and all the white woman tears videos and took them as rules to live by?
Glad other guests and security had your back.
@LizEllisPhD@mekkaokereke
Guarantee she has been doing this her whole life. This was not her 1st time and this is not a new thing. These women learn this from watching their mothers and grandmothers.
@mekkaokereke It is sadly entirely unsurprising that she felt justified in her attitude. I am so sorry that you were subjected to this rubbish, but also glad that white observers were disgusted at her behaviour toward you. A glimmer of hope in a bleak world.
@mekkaokereke I’m so grateful she got called on her aggression.
And I’m just disgusted that this is such a commonplace behavior that you have to worry about it AND she clearly has had multiple experiences with successfully bullying Black folks this way. 😡
It's almost analogous to the fediverse situation that Mekka described where a large fraction of oblivious white people stay oblivious until the gross racism is finally documented so well it cannot be denied.
Once their mind accepts the reality, they all-of-a-sudden can see subtle examples that their minds used to filter out.
My perspective: People see stuff, like bigness or Blackness, (or even a cloud) and think they understand what it signifies. That is usually not the case.
I hope you're well! Clearly a stressful situation that does take some time to recover from.
@mekkaokereke Of course she wasn't intimidated. Does anyone really believe there's a "fight, flight, or narrate" response?
"The last thing I saw on the video call was Bill saying, "Oh look, there's a large bear charging at me intending to eat me" and then the image spun and all I could hear was crunching and gurgling. Damn that fight, flight or narrate response."
@mekkaokereke I'm so sorry that happened to you, and that this kind of shit continues to happen. I promise if I'm observing/witnessing a situation like that I will act like those other guests did too. It may not stop the systemic nature of the problem but one less Karen perpetuating it is one less on the ledger and that's something.
@mekkaokereke man oh man what goes through these bigots’ minds?!? I’m glad it turned out ok. I hope and pray this is a symptom of a changing culture. I remember when I started to notice that a homophobe was likely to be the odd one out instead of getting implicit or explicit support from the crowd. It made a big difference. Though clearly those gains aren’t guaranteed.
@mekkaokereke For cryin' out loud, what does being big (or black or male/female or anything else) have to do with it? You were politely standing in line, doing your best to mind your own business, and that entitled white creep blithely assumed that everyone else would cheer her on. I'm very pleased to hear that she was dead wrong and the hotel staff and security stepped up to the plate!
@isotope239@mekkaokereke Far too many people see Blackness as inherently threatening, and when it comes in the form of a large male body, that feeling of being threatened compounds. It has absolutely nothing to do with what the person in that body has done.
@shawrd773@mekkaokereke As a smallish female, I definitely understand that but how genuinely threatened are you going to be standing in line at a hotel with plenty of witnesses? IMHO, she just didn't want him staying at the same hotel as she was staying in and figured she'd create a false narrative that would get him kicked out. Heaven forbid she might have to <gasp> share an elevator with a black guy! I say firetruck her and the horse she rode in on.
@isotope239@mekkaokereke I don’t think she was threatened. I think she was hoping to leverage that threat narrative. So his appearance absolutely matters; if he’d been a small white woman doing the exact same thing, none of this would have happened.
1/ But don’t we all judge others by their appearance all the time? What else do we have to judge others on after all? And it makes sense to make some serious judgements. I’ve just had a weekend in Marseille, a city notorious for street theft and violence. The ‘shifty’ looking character on the corner is worth avoiding maybe. It’s a reasonable precaution. But I need to understand why I think someone looks shifty. @mekkaokereke@isotope239
@JimmyB@shawrd773@mekkaokereke You make a good point about context; certainly it's probably a good safety precaution to be suspicious of appearance in the streets of Marseille, but in the case described it was a nice hotel with several people waiting in line. Speaking just for myself, I'd be less apt to judge on appearance in the hotel context, I'd just assume that everyone in the line was a fellow occupant.
@isotope239
Oh - god - absolutely. The Karening incident described was sickening, & hard for me to believe it continues to still happen despite publicity. Racism is deep. & exactly: context matters. But anywhere it's not OK to be scared by 'blackness' - hotel, or Brixton highstreet. If I am - that's on me.
Challenging my own prejudices is the key here. Chatted to some fantastic strangers in Marseille too BTW (the town was alive for some Rugby World Cup matches).
There's a subtle point that I think is getting lost in the incident that happened.
The woman was not afraid of me or intimidated by me at all. There was zero fear. This was 100% about her trying to exert control over my behavior, under threat of violence. She was pretending that I was threatening her, and pretending that she was intimidated.
yes point taken - and understood. Saw that Cooper incident video before and it was just as you described: completely faked intimidation.
My reaction before was to the suggestion that we need to stop judging people by appearances. I also understand the motivation but I think it’s too broad. At first blush we only have appearances and our trained consciousness to guide us. Fake outrage/fear is clearly dangerous
@mekkaokereke This is a shitty situation, but I’m happy that there is a ray of enlightenment that disabled her learned behavior of weaponizing her situation.
I am SO GLAD there were white witness allies that stuck around. The hotel security with their video evidence probably still would have ended up at the same conclusion, but more public allies in the mix always helps.
White allies, you have way more power in regular situations like this than you think. (And yes, it's rather regular, sadly.)
@mekkaokereke Stick around. Security guards aren't police in most areas. The most they can do is be a pain in the ass. As easier said than done as this is, just don't lose your cool. Don't give the guard or the other two people one bit of power over you.
@mekkaokereke While I wouldn't compare out struggles, as a butch trans woman I feel this.
A trans woman I know was hate-crimed by hotel security in full view of everyone, and nobody did anything. She ended up in the hospital.
I know a butch woman who's been assaulted by straight women for wanting to use the women's bathroom, and security did absolutely nothing about it. In a gay bar.
The moment security gets involved, I'm going into "let it slide" mode. The stakes are too high.
@mekkaokereke Is this evidence that my people--whites who want to be not racist--are learning find the cases of Karenism that have come up on social media? I hope so!
Me personally? I can't let every single thing slide.
I don't think it's healthy to swallow your soul at every interaction. It's important to advocate for yourself.
But I didn't know that dude was going to get all angry. If I did, I probably wouldn't have said anything. It's just one spot. Not worth it. No good to be had from conversing with angry people. 🤷🏿♂️
But when Karen tried that, she was so out of pocket that everyone saw it. Staff, other guests etc. Low risk for me, big gain.
@mekkaokereke
> "I can't let every single thing slide.
I don't think it's healthy to swallow your soul at every interaction. It's important to advocate for yourself."
Thanks for talking through this. I have a really hard time finding the right balance of risk in engaging vs risk of losing myself in advocating for myself too rarely.
@mekkaokereke I'm Canadian. I hear about racism and other safety issues in the US all the time, and yet my father, who worked in the USA in the '90s, still has the belief that it's a promised land that's absolutely perfect with no problems, just because of money.
Canada may be having its troubles right now, but I feel much, much more safer and welcomed here than I would in the US, especially the US of today. Seriously, I have no idea how you all manage to deal with this on a daily basis.
@yaygya@mekkaokereke given my profile pic I can’t speak to this personally, but as a fellow Canuck I have no reason to believe this kind of behaviour doesn’t happen here as well. This absolutely could have gone down at any hotel in downtown Toronto, much less any other city across the country.
This isn’t about voting policies or other metrics by which Canada can be held in higher esteem (those exist, just not here), this is about situational power and white people leveraging it to put people of colour “in their place”. And that can and does happen here.
@mikemacleod@mekkaokereke oh yeah, I won’t deny a lot of systemic racism happens here too. I see it a lot in professions. As an example, kindergarten teachers and preschool teachers do a lot of similar work, and yet in one of them you’re far less likely to see people of colour, and in the other, you get paid much less and have more unstable employment.
And when times get tough (as they are now), you face limitations on where you can live. I know a family who moved to rural Ontario whose kid was an outcast among the town’s completely white population. It’s only because a local cop stepped in that it simmered down.
And none of this is even touching the can of worms that is the mistreatment of indigenous peoples.
@mekkaokereke everything about this sucks and I'm sorry.
I wonder if/how this situation is different in the UK? I'd guess it's simalar bit less intense (angry dude more.oikely to be mortified he'd cut in, people tend not to start yelling for security, police are unarmed).
As a six foot not skinny guy with a shaved head in my early 20s I occasionally got reactions I did not expect but it wasn't a systemic thing.
I've lived in the UK and the US. The US has a much worse culture of white people policing Black people in what they perceive to be white spaces. This is because of the origins of the US police force (slave patrol), and the responsibilities of all white citizens to contribute to that slave patrol. We're seeing the evolution of that behaviour through Jim Crow.
Read this whole thread to understand why this phenomenon is very different in the UK vs the US.
It depends where I am & where I am going next. If I am at the airport or DMV in America 🇺🇸, I might let it slide. Grocery store I might fight him over it. If I am in Japan 🇯🇵, cops 👮🏾♂️ will be called (cutting in line is basically a crime there).
@mekkaokereke And this is why i have a deep hatred for the term BOTH SIDES!!. Not just because adults in schools do it when an innocent kid is being bullied.
But because it's used in politics to give republicans/conservatives a leg up when they clearly don't need it. Done for the exact same reasons that lady did it with you.
@samhainnight@WuMargaret@mekkaokereke all bullies assume silence is consent, not just racists. Back when I was still venturing out into the world on a regular basis I'd always say something if someone was being bullied no matter if it was race, gender or whatever-based. Don't get much opportunity anymore.
@Artemis13Athena@samhainnight@mekkaokereke I agree. My only caveats are how loudly or even just how I speak up depends on he situation. I wouldn’t want to escalate anything, make things even more unsafe, or take agency away from the person being bullied. I can almost always stick around, witness, and support without doing any of what I just mentioned.
@WuMargaret@samhainnight@mekkaokereke I’ll usually ask for directions or for the time. Just knowing there’s someone there is often enough to defuse the situation.
I don't go anywhere since COVID that I am likely to observe such as this. But I have such a pent-up rage at my fellow white people who persist in such irrational aggressive behavior that I suspect I would have escalated the situation. And probably gotten arrested. Kudos to you and the others for finessing it.
@mekkaokereke Sometimes, if a white observer is patient and waits in the right location long enough, they can spot the sometimes-elusive Karen in her natural setting! It is truly something to behold!
@mekkaokereke Completely whack that this person decided to inject herself into a situation she wasn't even involved with in the first place. I'm glad it had a good outcome.
🤔 It's been ~24 hrs, and you've replied to other posts, but not this one?
Surely, you have something to add to this conversation? (And that's "surely," not "Shirley").
Surely, you didn't just drop into my mentions to say that and nothing else? Share your wisdom!
I'm assuming positive intent here! Please don't make me look bad in front of all the Black people that rolled their eyes and assumed that you are just a... well I won't say what they assume. Assume positive intent! 👼🏿
@mekkaokereke as a matter of interest what would you prefer that a white bystander do in these situations? Just be there to observe? Asking in case I find myself in this situation.
@mekkaokereke have just remembered that I did actually do this once. Was on a tube train in London and two blokes made a couple of racist comments to a woman sitting opposite them. I said something - can’t remember exactly what - and they shut up. Then when they got off the train they banged on the window behind me and called me a F*** C***. Such lovely people. But me and the woman smiled.
@mekkaokereke
Sorry to hear that happened to you. But glad that the other guests in line told the truth of situation to security. It's really sad that people act like that. Good to hear that security kicked her out.
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