https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/latest-living-while-black-viral-moment-is-video-of-st/article_0dc0327d-aa36-5025-a3a5-bbf8a49c7754.html has some more on the incident referred to in reply #19.
We saw that (#19 + 20) yesterday on the news. Totally unreal. We wondered what the woman would have thought if the cards had been turned and he (or anyone) had questioned her about living there - esp with a key.
Overall we’re glad these (multiple videos) are going viral so more folks can know what’s going on out there. We only hope the vast majority find it unreal with the rest adjusting their thoughts to real life from whatever they were thinking - recognizing and fixing their racism.
(The “we” is my H, youngest son - whose fiancee isn’t caucasian, and myself.)
I believe that I read somewhere that the woman’s ex-boyfriend is mixed race. He was interviewed.
It sounds as if there is something going on there beyond simple bigotry.
At this point if I were a black person I would feel that I needed to be ready to whip out my phone and start the video at virtually any second. Imagine if he HADN’T had the video? He could have easily wound up dead. It is truly frightening.
If I lived in an apartment building with a locked entry that required a keypad code or key fob to enter, and someone pushed his way in when I was walking out, I’d be concerned too. It’s probably written into everyone’s lease that they are not to let people tailgate them when they are entering the building, or hold the door for people to come in when they are leaving. She asked him to key in the code or show her his key fob so that she could be assured that he was in fact authorized to enter the building. He refused. Maybe other people let him in sometimes, maybe he lets other people in, but that’s not how security is supposed to work in an urban apartment.
@MomofJandL, I get that, but if she was so concerned about the safety of the residents of that building, why would she get in the elevator alone with him, and why would she call the police after she saw him insert his key into his apartment?
I guarantee if I thought a person was coming into my complex for shady reasons, no way would I get into an elevator with him.
I can’t read her mind and won’t pretend to know what she thought or why she got into the elevator. There are probably several ways someone can get a key but not a fob and break into someone’s apartment.
He had every opportunity at the start of this encounter to cut it off by showing her his fob or keying in the code. Then he could have introduced himself. But he couldn’t bring himself to do either.
So was he new in that building? Did he not know the rules? Is she new, and the only one that enforces the rules? I don’t know. But my daughter lives in a building like that, and I don’t want her neighbors letting strangers in to roam the halls.
This woman was fired from her job. She worked for a real estate company, ironically. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/us/hilary-brooke-apartment-patty-st-louis.html
in the video he tells her that he has already “buzzed in” when she tells him to use the key pad. If he did so at the same time she is opening the door to leave, I don’t blame him for not wanting to have to prove himself to her or to reveal his apartment number.
He said he had buzzed in, she said he didn’t, he said it didn’t matter. I don’t know what he did. But I know he could have thanked her for maintaining the security of the residents, and he could have showed her a fob. But he chose not to do that, and he chose to video the encounter and post it and get her fired. So should we all let anyone into our locked buildings so we don’t get accused of bigotry?
This just gets more strange. In the other article linked above,
The police neither denied nor confirmed the statement in Mr. Toles’ email, but did say they received a call that a resident was concerned that a non resident was in the building.
@MomofJandL --it’s not the responsibility of people of color to continually prove to over-zealous white people that they don’t have to be scared of them. I can’t imagine having to live that way, and people assuming it was up to me to set their minds at ease. But that’s what’s expected of POC every day. It’s ridiculous.
What does being a POC have to do with it? A man she didn’t know was trying to get into her locked apartment building without using a key fob or key code (as far as she knew, there was some question about that.) Her responsibility to the other residents (and theirs to her) is not to let people in who don’t have fobs or know the code. His to her (and other residents, and theirs to him) is to make it clear that he was authorized to access the building. I’ve done that thousands of time at work, and seen it done dozens of times at friends’ condos. You let the door close, then you open it. No drama at all.
I am of two minds when it comes to this situation. I lived in NYC apartments for almost two decades. It is a standing rule that everyone in NYC knows not to allow someone you do not know to piggyback on your entry. However, it is sometimes awkward to close the door two inches in front of someone’s face. And of course, it the person happens to be a POC, you hate the idea of being perceived as racist when in fact you’d close the door on anyone you didn’t know.
So … I understand her initial reaction that she did not want him to piggyback. BUT he name-dropped two people who perhaps were the building managers or maintenance people. It was pretty clear he lived there. If he had been there to commit crime, which was purportedly what she was worried about, he would not have patiently waited for her to get out of the way. It soon became clear that she just wanted to harass him. A woman terrified of crime does not enter the elevator alone with the imagined criminal and follow him to his apartment.
My kids have lived in buildings like this, where you have a key thing to get into the building, in cities on east and west coasts and Chicago. Every time I visited, at every location, any resident seeing me approach the entrance, stopped and held the door open for me. No one ever questioned what I was up to in their building. Residents were going out of their way to help me, a white woman.
Tole doesn’t show the fob at her request, but does point out to her that she isn’t security or property management; then names two men, presumably security and property management. At that point she should have understood there was a real good chance he was a resident of “her building” but, if she was still concerned, I don’t know why she didn’t call one of the men he named instead of the police.
Cross posted with Brantley
I am nonwhite. I have had the door held open for me at many secured buildings in HI, Arlington, VA and other venues. I was never asked why I was present or to see a key fob or treated with any suspicion of disrespect. I was certainly not called in to the police or followed to where I was going.
That woman in the apartment seemed like a crazy stalker. She follows him to his apartment! And then says, “I just want to say hello, and what is your name?”
Is she trying to defuse the situation since he has just proved that he lives there? Or is she looking for a date in a very, very twisted way? But then she calls the police! I would not feel safe if I were him.
Imagine opening your door in the morning and seeing her there, with her little dog. Aghghghghhhh! It’s like a scene from Get Out.
I’m Irish-American, with blonde hair and freckles.
My son was adopted from Korea.
Heaven help anyone who had ever attempted to give me a hard time for being with my son. Thankfully I never met anyone that close-minded with the guts to make a comment.
@greenwitch said:
I think at that point she is still not convinced he actually lives there, so she is trying to get a name out of him so that she can validate it. Otherwise, why does she go on to call the police if she really believes that he has proven he is entitled to be in the building?
Well that is crazy too. He’s putting the key into his own door, what other proof does she want?
With all the BBQ Becky and others in the news, doesn’t she have a clue how this would turn out once he started filming?
She calls the police because she has already dug into her position (that he is a threat) and refuses to let go of it.