Labels, and the saga of Cornerstore Caroline


Related to my previous post, the latest tale of a white woman calling the cops on black people is the story of Cornerstore Caroline. A video went viral of her on the phone, calling the police on a black child, accusing him of grabbing her sexually in a bodega. We since have the surveillance video from the store that shows that, at most, a child brushed against her while walking by. She berated the whole family for this imaginary offense so loudly that the kids were crying.

Well, now she’s got an excuse. Or rather, multiple excuses.

The self-described unemployed “feminist and a humanist” variously insisted she was groped in the bodega and acknowledged the boy had only touched her accidentally — and accused his mom of pretending to be a cop, then later leaving a threatening message for her.

“I would like to apologize to her daughter and her son but not to her. She could have walked away, but she didn’t. I’m also a Buddhist, [but] I let my temper show,” Klein said.

“I’ve been called racist before, and I’m not.”

So…she couldn’t be bad because she’s a 1) feminist, 2) humanist, 3) Buddhist, 4) not a racist. OK. We all know no member of those tribes could possibly be wrong. I guess the camera was lying.

I’m going to get a button that says “GOOD HUMAN” to cover all my bases and get exempt from all accusations of wrong-doing.

Comments

  1. gijoel says

    After the officers arrived outside Klein’s home, she eventually came downstairs to speak to The Post — while her own neighbors stood around heckling her with calls of “Shame on you, Caroline!” and “You’re racist!”

    Christ what an arsehole. At least she didn’t try to shoot the kid

  2. komarov says

    I’m going to get a button that says “GOOD HUMAN” to cover all my bases and get exempt from all accusations of wrong-doing.

    Please let me know if it works. I’m considering a “Supreme Being” tag. “My will be done” sounds very convenient, plus there’s the implied good health to consider.

  3. says

    People of colour have been telling us about this shit forever, and all it took was video cameras being ubiquitous for fairly reasonable white people to start believing them (even with all of the cameras, there are still too many of us who don’t).

    It’s also making impossible for us to keep lying to ourselves. Racism is what they do in the American South! It’s what conservatives do! Nope. Klein and people like Sarah Braasch have convinced themselves that they aren’t racists, they are nice progessive people. Nope, they’re racists. They prove it by their actions.

    You’d think white self-proclaimed feminists would know better. We’re very aware of people who claim not to be misogynists while showing the opposite with the shit they say and do. But we have our blind spots for our own un-examined bigotries.

  4. angela78 says

    Ok. Here we’ve got filmed proof that she was lying, and the would-be assaulter is a kid, and she’s white and the kid’s black.
    But without the footage, and with an older boy -say a teenager-, shouldn’t we believe her?
    (No, we shouldn’t.)