Detroit 'Karen' blocked black mother's car in a supermarket's parking lot as she 'saw her kid step on a shelf'
DETROIT, MICHIGAN: In yet another incident of racial discrimination, an unidentified white woman, dubbed as Karen – an umbrella term used for an entitled, obnoxious, white woman – refused to allow a black mother to leave a supermarket's car parking lot because her child had earlier stood on a shelf to get an item. The incident reportedly happened at a Kroger store when the son of the black mother identified as Shaneeka Montgomery-Strickland, 43, stepped on the bottom shelf to reach a Gatorade bottle.
Montgomery-Strickland told the media that when she was trying to leave the supermarket on Saturday, June 13, at Eight Mile and Farmington, the "Karen" become confrontational when things did not turn up the way she wanted them to. "Karen" stood behind the woman's car and refused to leave. The mother-of-three, who also streamed the altercation on Facebook Live, said she went to the store for grocery shopping with her children when she came in contact with the woman.
You can watch the video here.
“This needs to be known. You can't just stay hush hush about everything and keep on letting people get away with nonsense,” the black woman said as she continued, “She said, 'Ohmygod, they went up to get they Gatorade and I'm trying to shop here.' It was irateness. I told her please don't yell at them and then she started yelling at me. And I said, 'You don't have to yell at me, they got the Gatorade.' And there's a lot of people where, if you're short you're going to go up there and grab what you need. There's not a lot of workers in the aisle, you have to do what you have to do and you move on."
Things did not stop there. It escalated when Montgomery-Strickland and her kids walked out to their car. “She still went to her car, came back with the baby in the cart, called me the b-word, then she stood behind my car because I started videotaping after that,” the black mother said.
“I said ma'am can you please move from behind my car, she told me 'no' I'm not going anywhere," Montgomery-Strickland said. In the Facebook video, it was also seen that the white woman called the police and ran towards them as soon as they arrived. However, the officers took details from both women and finally asked the white woman to move from the parking.
It has been said that the white woman also wanted Montgomery-Strickland to stop recording and delete the video. But, Montgomery-Strickland did not stop or remove the clip from social media as she believes it's important to hit the record button when things like this happen. “I've gotten a lot of responses. People are very angry and upset about it because they say it makes no sense. What is wrong with people? Why are they still out here doing this after all that's going on, all the changes we're trying to make? After Black Lives Matter? It makes no sense,” Montgomery-Strickland said.