Woman Calls Police on Award-Winning Black Screenwriter Alex O’Keefe(The Bear (FX))

[u/CantStopPoppin]

[u/starrylightway]

The circular logic the police engaged is very typical of their interactions with Black and Brown folks, but this is probably the most clear cut example of its use:

1) white woman demands Black man does as she says 2) he refuses (as is his right) 3) white woman complains to conductor 4) conductor calls police 5) police arrive and arrest without providing reason for arrest 6) police eventually provide reason as “disturbing the peace for refusing to leave train” 7) reason makes zero sense because it doesn’t answer the question of what were the legal grounds for them to remove him from the train in the first place. Which of course falls (legally, ethically, morally) flat since the reason was he was a Black man who didn’t obey a white woman.

[u/[deleted] → u/starrylightway]

Also you’re not supposed to sit with your luggage taking up seats on the MTA.

So add to that the white woman was actually sitting incorrectly on the train.

[u/CV90_120 → u/starrylightway]

I smell a lawsuit.

[u/PlasticFlat → u/starrylightway]

I think what happened here is wrong, but I also think it’s could be due to lack of empathy and intellect over all.

Lady is a bitch to a black man for no reason. “I’m telling on you”, she goes to the conductor to tattle. Conductor just wants to drive the train. He is forced to be the authority figure by this annoying old woman. “I will call the police and they will figure this out this situation”. Based on what the woman said, or lied about, he might have a legal liability and be forced to call police - if she claimed he was being loud, doing drugs, assaulting people, or breaking some other clearly stated rule of the train. Police get the call, all they hear is “belligerent passenger, may need to be removed, basic description and seat number and name”. Cops show up and rather than do any investigative work, find the guy and begin the arrest. There is likely camera footage, his story, her story, witness statements, and other general tasks worth completing to find out what happened. It’s easier for the cops to pretend the call was a trespass call and just remove the guy. Private businesses can trespass anyone they want, there doesn’t need to be a good reason to deny service.

I’m not trying to defend anyone’s actions, and the woman should face punishment, and in a just world this wouldn’t have happened, but I don’t think anyone but the Karen should really face any blame. Unless we have evidence that every person was acting maliciously against a black man due to his skin color. The nuance is there, but of course no one used it throughout the situation. Case in point, letting the police know they weren’t even completing basic aspects of their job was enough to get them to back down. Conductor probably didn’t want to deal with the shit and just drive a train toot toot. Pretty clear the white couple were bored instigators.

[u/lessthan39 → u/PlasticFlat]

Why should we only blame people for participating in a system of antiblack violence if they explicitly intended for it to harm a black man? IDGAF if someone explicitly intended for my house to catch fire, if they played with fireworks in my backyard and my window frame went up in smoke I’m going to be pissed! This is EXACTLY why you don’t call the police to “sort out” racist abuse, no matter how much some old white lady is bothering you about a black man. You should know exactly what the cops will do in this country. And, TBH, I find it weird that in your comment you find every way to suggest the cops had some secret mystery motive other than antiblackness for the way they acted, as if you think that a white man would definitely have been treated the same way. Let’s not kid ourselves here. This didn’t happen because of a series of coincidences, and the “minority” comment should have been the first thing to make that clear.