California 'Karen' screams N-word at Black man, calls police on him over parking space dispute in viral video
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: A woman was caught on camera hurling racial slurs, including the n-word at a young Black man, before calling the police on him because he occupied a parking space that was allegedly reserved for residents of her community. "San Bernardino Senior Racist Karen, Shame On The City Of Highland, CA," one Instagram user captioned the video of the interaction, which was first reported by the Towleroad website on Monday, August 10.
The unidentified woman is seen in the video asking why the young man was there, reportedly suggesting he was "getting a piece of a** or something" inside his vehicle. In response, he asks her, "Why are you so hostile?" "You're not supposed to be illegally parking," the woman replies, insisting that she has a "constitutional right to freedom of speech" as she hurls racial epithets and threatens to report him.
"You're stealing from me," the woman says. "I don't have to leave America to go to Africa. You guys need to leave Africa to come to America," she continues.
"No, you all took us from Africa and brought us here," the man filming the video responds. "You hate Mexicans, but every street out here is named a Latin name. You are all so hateful. Why do you hate so much? We don't need hatred in the world. There's enough of that going on," he continues. "You're older. I'm a young man. I probably can't get through to you. But if I can get through to one person, you can maybe get through to 10 people. It's easier to love."
Ironically, a Black police officer responds to the woman's complaint. The man filming then asks her how that made her feel and whether she believed the officer was an n-word as well. "Nope," she replies. "That's a hate word. I hate somebody stealing from me."
'Karen' has become a popular moniker to describe middle-aged women who talk down to people with differing opinions or are overly sensitive. Last month, we reported how another California 'Karen' was caught on video harassing landscape workers from doing their job. Juan Andrade was mowing a lawn at an apartment complex in the city of Rancho Mirage, California when a White female resident approached him without a face mask on and demanded proof of his US citizenship. Andrade has spent 10 years working for a landscaping company in Rancho Mirage but the Parkview Villas incident was particularly remarkable.
“It’s usually been about the work, but never to instigate or harass me,” Andrade told NBC Palm Springs. “Like any other complex, I was just doing the work for all of them, mowing the lawn," he recalled. "I passed by her apartment and when I turned around to do the second round that’s when I saw her standing."
The unidentified woman leaned down to the camera and blew a kiss before she began circling him. "Can you move? I'm doing my work," Andrade told her as she stood in his path but she wouldn't budge.
"Can you move out of my work area?" he repeated, "And can you step away? You're too close to me right now and you're not wearing a mask." In response, the woman said in a low voice, "Then show me your papers." "Can you move away?" he asked again but she repeated, "No, no. Show me your papers." He responded, "You want to see my papers? You immigration?"
"Show me your papers, mariposa," the woman told Andrade, raising her eyebrows. Mariposa is Spanish for "butterfly" but it is also a pejorative term for "homosexual".
"The Rancho Mirage Housing Authority has a zero-tolerance policy for this type of behavior and the harassment of anyone, including other tenants, visitors, guests, and contracted vendors conducting work at its affordable senior housing properties," the local housing authority's manager Marcus Aleman said in a statement at the time.