A viral video shows a woman blocking a black Postmates driver from delivering food, claiming he’s a danger to her community. The internet was quick to label her another racist Karen.
The Karen videos just keep coming, but we promise this is one of the worst you’ll see. A Postmates driver was just trying to make a living in this pandemic and what he encountered is insane.
The woman starts by saying she refuses to let the man enter her building because she “doesn’t want him here”. Then the resident who ordered the Postmates delivery comes over the intercom and the Karen attacks him as well. The woman tries to claim the man isn’t a delivery worker at all and instead he’s “some black guy” trying to break into apartment buildings. While the Postmates worker talks about how he’s trying to make ends meet, the woman complains about her apartment building not respecting her enough. Finally the encounter ends with the resident getting their food and the woman saying “he isn’t going to be buzzed in, I’m not letting him in”. Wow.
The man in the video has been identified as Jordan Gipson, who shared this video to his instagram as an example not just of a Karen, but of the racism he faces and how important it is to protect yourself by capturing the full encounter.
A second clip from the encounter was leaked where the woman asks why Jordan is wearing a mask and comments “is this a hold up”. This really gets at the root of this story – the Karen felt frightened by a black man with a face covering being in her neighborhood. She immediately accused him of robbing the apartment because that was her first assumption at seeing a person of color in her neighborhood, that they were an out of place criminal. At least that’s how a lot of people online are interpreting it.
Jordan’s instagram comments were flooded with praise for how he kept his calm, one user saying “your patience for this is INSANE”. Jordan had a classy reply, saying “when they go low, we go high”. In other comments however, Jordan pointed out how frequently people of color are held to a higher standard of civility. If the police were called and the entire situation wasn’t recorded, he could have automatically been assumed to be the aggressor and been arrested or attacked. This is exactly what we saw in the central park Karen incident a few weeks back, where a woman threatened to call the police on a black man bird watching and claim he was attacking her.
But not everyone thought Jordan made the right move by filming her. One instagram user commented “she’s clearly mentally unstable, you should of stopped engaging with her a long time ago …mental illness is no joke and you can tell this woman is off, just calling it how i see it”. Others don’t think the Karen’s age or stability should play a factor. One user posted “im so sick of every one of these videos somebody says, oh she was unstable, or, oh she was drunk. No. they’re racist. This seems straight from hatred”.
The apartment complex address has been leaked online and supposedly the complex’s legal team is investigating the situation and the resident after people from all over the US called to demand action. That’s the power of the internet. Jordan has thanked people for their phone calls but is asking that no one shows up to the woman’s apartment and he is avoiding doxxing her.
A GoFundMe was started by Jordan’s girlfriend, saying “Jordan was very patient with this racist woman who did not deserve the calm reaction he gave her” and asking people to help out with his rent payments.
Please folks, wear a mask and be a good person and thank our essential workers. The people going out in this pandemic to get us food deserve our support.
ADVERTISEMENT
