If you’re black in America, you know that you constantly have to be on guard over everything. This means protecting yourself and your family because you never know when a white citizen’s words could lead to harm. This is why one Ohio man reacted the way he did when his loved one’s purse was taken from her in a public bathroom by a white Karen. The focus of the story is the stolen purse but he was the star of the show when he quickly corralled his family to protect them.
Toya (@la___toyyaa) shared a TikTok video titled, “Karen tried to steal my purse out of the bathroom smh.” In the video, you can see a white Karen holding onto a purse as a woman and man pull back on it from the other side. The man holding onto the purse says, “That’s my wife’s purse. Can you please let go?” The other woman pulling the purse toward them says, “Look at her ID.” The frustrated Karen, ready to make a scene, shouts, “Well, get the ID out!” They pull the purse one last time and remove it from the Karen’s hands.
The black man in the video calmly says to the family, “Thank you, have a good day, guys.” He then says to his family, “Ya’ll, come on. Let’s go.” While he’s moving his family away, the Karen just can’t stop talking and calling after them. She keeps it going by trying to get them to own up to the misunderstanding. (Remember: she’s the one that tried to take the purse.) The man keeps his family walking away from the Karen, stating, “There’s too many of them. There’s not enough of us.” At this point, my heart dropped as I understood that he’s trying to avoid a confrontation with the white family. A confrontation means the cops might be called and this, to a black family, could spell danger.
While the black family waits patiently at the elevator, the Karen is walked away from the area by her husband. This doesn’t mean she keeps her mouth shut, though. You can hear her angrily ranting that she wanted to see identifying information regarding the purse. She says, “It could be someone’s credit card, it could be insurance, it could be anything.” The white Karen then goes on to say that she found her own purse in her bathroom. She never owns up to the fact that she accused a black woman of basically stealing her purse. No apologies, no nothing.
Commenters also caught on to man’s intentions as he tried to save his family from what could be a dangerous situation. One person mentioned, “The husband is a wise man. It wasn’t about backing down it was about removing his family from a situation that could potentially go left. All it takes is a Karen dialing 911 and a hot headed cop and him and his family would have been in danger. Sometimes it’s best to walk away.” It’s heartbreaking that this is how on guard all black people in America have to be. In our current times, it never hurts to be cautious of anybody’s intentions.
