Trial by social media for a pregnant woman who cried when a man tried to steal the bike she's hired is tried and hung by social media, and put on unpaid leave from her job, with no evidence or investigation:
https://www.bicycling.com/news/a43920956/pregnant-nyc-karen-on-video-trying-to-steal-a-black-mans-citi-bike/
https://news.yahoo.com/receipts-show-hospital-worker-accused-170920174.html
It turns out she had paid for the bike and he has no evidence he paid. But he is not the subject of the internets wrath, no consequences for him.
I hope she takes her employers to court and wins a massive settlement. Surreal levels of misogyny and hatred directed to a pregnant healthcare worker who did nothing wrong at all.
Will this ever be recognised for what it is?
Feminism: chat
Pregnant NYC Bike "Karen" was the victim, not the agressor
littleripper · 19/05/2023 09:33
“Pregnant NYC Karen” on Video Trying To Steal a Black Man’s Citi Bike
“Stop fake crying.”
https://www.bicycling.com/news/a43920956/pregnant-nyc-karen-on-video-trying-to-steal-a-black-mans-citi-bike
SleepDreamThinkHuge · 26/05/2023 12:13
Victim yeah right two sides to every story:
No one bothered to contact us to find out Michael’s story,” she said in a low voice during an interview on Wednesday. “They write all of these things about him, but no one bothered to ask him what happened or look at his receipts.”
Michael interjected: “That’s because if they have my side of the story, she doesn’t have a case.”
Sarah Jane Comrie Update: Citi Bike Teen's Mother Speaks Out (newsone.com)
What about the pile on this guy has faced? Being called a thug and thief. No outrage over that. You cannot use abusive tactics when you are wrong. If I am in the wrong it is better to accept it and not cry dramatically.
SleepDreamThinkHuge · 26/05/2023 12:13
Victim yeah right two sides to every story:
No one bothered to contact us to find out Michael’s story,” she said in a low voice during an interview on Wednesday. “They write all of these things about him, but no one bothered to ask him what happened or look at his receipts.”
Michael interjected: “That’s because if they have my side of the story, she doesn’t have a case.”
Sarah Jane Comrie Update: Citi Bike Teen's Mother Speaks Out (newsone.com)
What about the pile on this guy has faced? Being called a thug and thief. No outrage over that. You cannot use abusive tactics when you are wrong. If I am in the wrong it is better to accept it and not cry dramatically.
skullbabe · 26/05/2023 11:19
If this was a man arguing with a group of women, might he be a sexist? He might. Should he be called a sexist, judged as such? No, because he didn't actually do anything sexist.
I have repeatedly told you it is not the argument that people have issue with. I have also informed you as to what the thing is that people have found racist and why. You may not want to accept it but her behaviour in the moment was at best meanspirited and at worst racist. You want to give her benefit of the doubt. Black people cannot afford to.
Lndnmummy · 26/05/2023 13:55
This is heart breaking. And what we, as mothers of black children have been trying to say. We know how this go. We have been there time and time again.
I can not understand how a human being who is so passionate about the rights of women, are so unable to extend that same belief for equality to race. Someone earlier posted so much more eloquently than me. This is so distressing.
SleepDreamThinkHuge · 26/05/2023 12:13
Victim yeah right two sides to every story:
No one bothered to contact us to find out Michael’s story,” she said in a low voice during an interview on Wednesday. “They write all of these things about him, but no one bothered to ask him what happened or look at his receipts.”
Michael interjected: “That’s because if they have my side of the story, she doesn’t have a case.”
Sarah Jane Comrie Update: Citi Bike Teen's Mother Speaks Out (newsone.com)
What about the pile on this guy has faced? Being called a thug and thief. No outrage over that. You cannot use abusive tactics when you are wrong. If I am in the wrong it is better to accept it and not cry dramatically.
skullbabe · 26/05/2023 07:51
Not really sure how this is relevant. To take your parallel, yes, being a victim of sexism/sexual assault is shit. But if a man were suspended from his job, relieved death threats, and was forced into hiding based on the kind of "evidence" we've seen in that video, I would feel sorry for him while still feeling sorry for victims of sexism/rape/assault. I don't see one as contradicting the other.
Very interesting. I presume you believe that people can do sexist things without talking about someone’s gender or making sexist remarks. If you do - do you think that they should warrant censure if it happens? And is the reason it doesn’t always happen is because of patriarchy? Because it sounds to me that what you are saying via a vis racism is that you want people of colour to have the same response of society as patriarchy which is a shrug. I think the response of society to this event is the right one and we should be pushing for a societal response to patriarchy to be similar to this one - we have a long way to go on that front. We can always feel sorry for someone who is being told off or being punished - we’re human, however we cannot extend our empathy to not allowing for outcomes of behaviour (be it sexism or racism) to happen.
aloris · 27/05/2023 00:48
No one comes out looking like a saint here. Overall, as I understand it, these city bike programs are meant to encourage environmentally friendly commuting. Based on the interview with the teenage boy, low income residents get a reduced price for 45 minute rides (possibly for free? I wasn't sure I was interpreting the receipts correctly). As described, it sounds as if the logic behind the price increasing after 45 minutes, is that the bike program allows free users to have 45 minutes of "fun" riding and then they want to encourage you to relinquish the bike so it can be used for its intended purpose of commuting. It's not exactly "in the spirit of things" to repeatedly use the low cost E-bike privilege from 5 pm to 10 pm, for what amounts to joyriding, thus preventing someone from using it to commute, especially as rush hour is going to fall right in the middle of that. I can understand, however, if he and his friends were now a 45 minute bike ride from home, that it would not be palatable, at that point, to give up the E-bike and have to ride another one home manually. And, according to his story, although he and his friends were gaming the system by physically holding the bikes until they reset, to prevent other users accessing them, and doing so multiple times per day, they weren't doing anything technically illegal or (from what I can tell) against the terms and conditions of using the bike.
On the other hand, it's also not super nice to game the system using the new E-bikes on riding for fun when there's a pregnant woman (of any race) who would like to get home after work. The bike gives you 45 minutes at a low cost for leisure, why not be happy with that? Why circumvent the reset period that was clearly designed to encourage return of the bikes to general use, so that you can extend your leisure ride to the span of hours? And, just as the teens didn't really want to ride 45 minutes home on their own steam, I doubt the pregnant woman fresh off a 12 hour shift wanted to do so either. I'm not sure about the validity of considering yourself to have "reserved" an E-bike (that is, officially, not currently rented by anyone) by physically holding on to it for 20 minutes until it resets.
Her behavior doesn't look great either. If I were in her position and a group of teens were physically holding E-bikes that they had not, in fact, rented (just waiting for them to reset for rental), and preventing paying users from renting them, I would be pretty upset I think, but I would probably just walk away and take the subway or whatever. The details of her story and his story about how she got on the bike, are different, so I'm not sure how I would parse working out who was right or wrong there. In the video she was already on the bike, from what I could tell.
If I were the Bike rental company, I would probably change the reservation system so the same user could not rent the same bike twice in a row like that, even with the reset period. If you leave a gap in your system, people will game it, and ultimately you'll end up with a system that is not useful for commuting, which defeats the purpose.
BacklashBacklash · 27/05/2023 05:58
Because it sounds to me that what you are saying via a vis racism is that you want people of colour to have the same response of society as patriarchy which is a shrug.
Nope. No idea where you're getting that from. Wanting people to not have their lives turned upside down based on 'some people believe she meant so-and-so/was fake crying' isn't the same as wanting racism and sexism to just be shrugged at.
I think the response of society to this event is the right one
Society's response has hardly been unified, has it? Certain sections have made horrifically racist comments about the lads. Other sections have been awful about the woman. Many press outlets and commentators rushed to brand her a lying, racist thief before performing a swift reverse-ferret, having to delete and apologise. I'm struggling to get enthusiastic about any of this as "the right response".
Based on standards in this thread, I could craft an argument about why the lads directly involved were sexist and part of an age-old institutional misogyny problem based on their denying the woman access to a resource she was entitled to, videoing her and releasing it to humiliate/shame her, physically restricting her movements, lying about her. But I don't know them, and it wouldn't seem fair.
Lndnmummy · 27/05/2023 14:38
It is more likely they filmed her to protect themselves should the police turn up. We tell our children to immediately start filming any interaction with white adults they feel intimidated by.
Soubriquet · 28/05/2023 17:22
Technically yeah he wasn’t renting it at the time, but he did have proof he was going to after a couple of minutes…
Yeah what he did was “rude” as such, but it wasn’t against the law. Plus he was 18..would you let a kid be stranded from home 45 mins away and no way home?
It’s a difficult case.
ChardonnaysBeastlyCat · 28/05/2023 18:29
Would you rather leave a pregnant woman who’s just finished a hospital shift with no means to get home?
Is the hardship bigger for a fit young man?
Soubriquet · 28/05/2023 17:22
Technically yeah he wasn’t renting it at the time, but he did have proof he was going to after a couple of minutes…
Yeah what he did was “rude” as such, but it wasn’t against the law. Plus he was 18..would you let a kid be stranded from home 45 mins away and no way home?
It’s a difficult case.
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