Imagine having to be careful with every move you make and everything you say. With tensions rising and the fear of an unlawful arrest (or worse), it pays to be cautious around outright racist individuals. One woman in Ohio experienced this reality when she was on a routine shopping trip with her teenage son. Unfortunately, a White Karen had other another idea: to accuse the woman’s Black teenage son of stealing. The evidence? Well, he “looked guilty,” according to her.
The incident went like this: 42-year-old Penny Thompson was shopping for a TV for her 15-year-old son. Suddenly, a White woman standing next to a pickup truck was accusing Penny’s son of stealing her wallet out of her purse. In a video of the incident, Penny asks a Walmart employee, “Is she high or something?” to which he responds, “I don’t know.” White Karen accuses Penny of “pulling the race card” and throws her hands up in the air, saying, “I don’t care what color you are, you look guilty.”
Penny and the woman continue to fight back and forth, with the Karen acting as if Penny will hit her. However, Penny just tells her to “go home” as she continues to fill the back of her trunk with groceries. The employee, who seems indifferent about the situation, seems to stand there watching to make sure that nobody starts throwing punches at one another.
As Penny is putting the last of her groceries in her car, she asks, “And now they’re calling the police, really?” while her 15-year-old son accuses them of being racist. She continues to egg Penny on, who then calls her a “f***ing broke b***h,” in a hilarious last statement.
In an interview with Atlanta Black Star, Penny revealed things were even more tense than seen in the video: The white woman’s husband actually went as far as to block Penny’s car from leaving the parking lot with his pickup truck. Police eventually did show up at the scene but it turned out her son didn’t steal the wallet. It was inside the woman’s own purse. Surprise, surprise!
Rightfully enraged commenters were shocked at the interaction but not too shocked, because this is a common reality for POC in America. One person suggested, “Lawsuit. That’s the only way they will stop they accuse us way too often for no reason.” Another person added, “Blocking her from leaving is holding a person hostage.”
If he wouldn’t have pulled that move until cops arrived, Penny and her son likely would have gone about her day and the police probably would have never been called. But this White Devil definitely thought she had something here, and thought she could ruin a young Black teenager’s day. Luckily, she played herself and looked like a fool.
