writing

Here’s what Sarah Jane Comrie could do to fix the Citi Bike situation, but she won’t

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We are upset because Sarah Jane Comrie chose to react in a way that was too over the top for the type of dispute that was happening at that moment. 

The boy’s side of the story has now come out, and we’ve learned that she initially asked three of the boys in the video if she could take their bikes, and after being told “no” by all three, she proceeded to try and commandeer the bike of the boy we see resisting her in the video. 

His side of the story makes her look so much worse. She comes off as entitled at the very least, but the history of white women weaponizing their whiteness and tears in the name of causing trouble for Black people is what has people — Black people in particular — on edge. 

Here’s what Sarah Jane Comrie could do to fix the Citi Bike situation, but she won’t

Mother Of Teen In Citi Bike Video Speaks Out: ‘No One Bothered To Ask Him What Happened’

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“This situation is really driving me crazy and making me sick,” Betty said. “We have never been in this situation before.”

“We came to this country to make a better life for our kids,” she continued. “We are not thieves. Just because we are poor doesn’t mean we are thieves.”

Betty said Michael had to stay home from school for a few days because of the mental anguish of the incident and all that has come after it.

“As a mother, you don’t want to see your child like that,” she said.

Betty said she was horrified when she first saw the video.

“My reaction when I saw it was ‘oh my God. I almost lost my son in that moment.’ Do you understand me? I am not from here, but we all know this country,” she said. “But how the policemen here do our sons, and our husbands, and our fathers. They kill us.”

Mother Of Teen In Citi Bike Video Speaks Out: ‘No One Bothered To Ask Him What Happened’

Accountability is like kryptonite to whiteness

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The racist mob has tried to make the narrative be about everything but Sarah Jane Comrie’s behavior in the video — even though it’s her behavior that everyone is upset about. 

There is a reason for this. 

Accountability is like kryptonite to whiteness. Whiteness does not like being held accountable. Whiteness doesn’t like seeing white people being held accountable. 

Accountability is like kryptonite to whiteness

The ‘receipts’ don’t matter. The bike doesn’t matter. Sarah Jane Comrie’s actions matter

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Her lawyer’s statements in the media are meant to obfuscate the actual issue at hand. He is making it about whether or not she tried to steal a bike and whether or not she actually paid for said bike, but even he has to know on some level that’s not the real issue. 

Judging by his statements in defense of her, the employment lawyer representing Sarah Jane Comrie understands that her very loud and public outburst where she weaponizes her tears and begins screaming for help even when she was in no imminent danger is the issue. 

People who saw that video understood exactly what Sarah Jane Comrie was doing. It was evident in the smug look you see on her face right before she began screaming for help. 

Attorney Justin Marino knows that even Sarah Jane Comrie’s employer, NYC Health + Hospitals called her behavior in the video “disturbing.”

The ‘receipts’ don’t matter. The bike doesn’t matter. Sarah Jane Comrie’s actions matter

White People Like Sarah Jane Comrie Always Get The Benefit Of The Doubt

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It’s really funny the way white people get all up in arms about one of their own being dragged through the media, but they have no issue with it when it’s a Black victim having their past dredged up in the wake of their murder ala Jordan Neely. The hypocrisy is blinding and white. 

Adding to the madness is a follow-up article from the New York Post in which they claim to have receipts sent to them by Justin Marino, an employment lawyer defending Sarah Jane Comrie to help her keep her job with NYC Health + Hospitals (NYC H+H). 

Marino claims the alleged receipts prove that Comrie rented the bike first and it was immediately put back in the rack one minute later, and then she rented another shortly thereafter. 

The Post follow-up was written after Marino sent a letter in response to their original article.

White People Like Sarah Jane Comrie Always Get The Benefit Of The Doubt

Let’s talk about the 50 Cent Cinematic Universe

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If “Raising Kanan” accomplishes anything, it makes teenage Kanan (Mekai Curtis) something of a sympathetic character. You can see how the things that happened to him in his youth, especially when it comes to dealing with his mother Raq (Patina Miller). The main men in his life, his uncles Lou (Malcolm Mays) and Marvin (London Brown) are drug dealers and major players in Raq’s drug empire, and they are his main influences. Then he gets the added rub of finding out his real father is a cop (Omar Epps). Life is hard for young Kanan Stark. 

That said, I’m not sure how all of that leads to him being the homicidal maniac he is in the original series, but I’m sure we’ll find out. The show has already completed two seasons, and a third should be released this summer. 

The 50 Cent Cinematic Universe has me in a chokehold

Sarah Jane Comrie used her whiteness to try and steal a Citi Bike

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Sarah Jane Comrie knew exactly what she was doing when she began yelling. She wanted to draw the wrong type of attention to those young men so she could force them to give her what she wanted — the motorized bike.

She understands that as a white woman, she is always going to be viewed as the victim in any situation. She knows that white comfort is always prioritized over everything else. She is aware that if she makes a loud enough scene, some white man or a cop will come flying in to “rescue” her.

It’s what she wanted.

Sarah Jane Comrie is a 2023 version of Carolyn Bryant.

Bryant, who died two weeks ago on April 25, should have been tried in Emmett Till’s murder, but she never was. She died of old age — a luxury she denied Emmett Till.

Emmett Till was murdered because of her lie.

Sarah Jane Comrie Is A 2023 Version Of Carolyn Bryant
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My favorite piece of chicken is the thigh

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You heard me. The chicken thigh is the best piece of chicken in the entire bunch. Whenever I go somewhere and get chicken — whether it’s Popeyes, Church’s or Roscoe’s — I always ask for all thighs. Don’t bother giving me any other pieces, because I am definitely going to complain and send them back.

The definitive ranking of chicken pieces in order from best to worst

Let’s talk about the way Black women are constantly targeted for ‘humbling’

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Before the whining starts, I want to be clear that I realize all women are shamed for the tiniest of things that shouldn’t even matter or be anyone else’s business, but as Black women, we are held under a microscope and have every decision, emotion, hairstyle, financial status, education level, number of previous lovers — you name it, we have had it picked apart and thrown in our faces at any given moment. 

Black women get shamed for everything

Snowfall is legend

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Everyone from the hood or hood adjacent knows a dude who is out there wandering the streets looking crazy and lost. When we see him, we say, “You know who that is?”

For us right now in this moment, that dude is Franklin Saint.

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The Tennessee State House just did the most racist thing

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I believe Elie Mystal said it best when he told MSNBC, “Tennessee has now given the entire country an object lesson in critical race theory better than any AP history course ever could have. Everybody sees it now. Everybody knows it now. Everybody gets exactly what is going on.”

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MLK is not your Black Jesus, white people

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Today, on the 55th anniversary of his murder, I wrote about how white people weaponize Dr. Martin Luther King, his work, and his message against Black people.

“One of the biggest lies ever told about King is that he believed in a colorblind society. This is false.

It is an idea derived from a 40-word passage from his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech in which he said, ‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.’

And if we are being honest, that 40-word passage has been whittled down to nine simple words “not be judged by the color of their skin.”

What King meant when he said that and what white people have twisted it to mean are two different things.”

Dear white people: Martin Luther King Jr. is not Black Jesus. He did not die for our ‘sins.’

Bye, legacy Twitter verification

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Ever since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, he seems to be on a mission to destroy everything good about the app one bad decision at a time, and his latest stunt proves that he is a nincompoop who deserves to lose the $44 billion he spent on the world’s most expensive online game of idiocy — which is what he has turned Twitter into since becoming the CEO. 

Elon has been promoting Twitter Blue for a while now. Twitter describes it as, “our premium subscription service that elevates quality conversations on Twitter.”

How exactly it “elevates quality conversations” is unclear, especially given that one of the perks for joining is receiving a blue checkmark on your account. Receiving the blue checkmark is a highly promoted perk of the Twitter Blue service, and is likely the biggest draw for those who have already elected to join it. 

Elon Musk can have this blue checkmark back because I refuse to pay for Twitter

‘Fo shizzle, my nizzle…’

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I’m sure Barbie was a beloved part of people’s daily news routine down there, and that’s fine, but there’s this thing that happens when white people get too comfortable around Black people: They start thinking they can say and do things they normally wouldn’t if they didn’t have that familiarity. 

To be clear, “nizzle” is a euphemism for the n-word. Most of us know that, and I’m sure Barbie Bassett was well aware of that before she let it come out of her mouth. Using the euphemism instead of the real word when you are a white person is still egregious no matter how you try to defend it or spin it. You shouldn’t be trying to use that word in any way, shape or form, even if you try to say she was just emulating or paying homage to Snoop Dogg, it’s still wrong. 

It’s just like the digital blackface conversation — there are no passes for this. 

Bassett has not appeared on air since the incident happened, and according to multiple news reports, no reason has been given for her absence. While station vice president and general manager Ted Fortenberry said on social media, “WLBT is unable to comment on personnel matters,” there is no official word on whether she has actually been fired. Her bio is no longer on the station’s website, and she has reportedly removed any mention of WLBT from her Facebook page. 

A white lady news anchor said ‘fo shizzle my nizzle’ on air and got benched for her trouble

Let’s talk about digital blackface

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To be clear, Black people were not always equally represented in the GIF game. In fact, aside from some really creative people making their own, there was a decided dearth of Black reaction gifs for us to share. That changed in 2016 when Jasmyn Lawson became the culture editor at GIPHY and made it her mission to make “their library of GIFs an inclusive reflection of the world.”

She accomplished her goal. She added some of the funniest and most iconic moments with our favorite Black celebrities, athletes, and social media personalities to the mix and suddenly we had a way to express ourselves with each other on social media. It was like having a graphics version of AAVE to speak in. 

Black folks speaking in memes and GIFs with each other on social media is a type of shorthand we all know and recognize. It’s a way we signify with and relate to each other. 

Our use of these memes and GIFs comes with an inherent cultural understanding of where they came from and what they represent when we use them with each other. 

That type of understanding and nuance is not present when non-Black people try to use them in the same way. 

There are levels to this ‘digital blackface’ discussion

Y’all started it

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Before I get started, let me be clear about one thing: All white people have white privilege. 

Whenever white privilege comes up as a topic, there are always white people who want to claim they don’t have it because they are poor or uneducated or whatever excuse they come up with to try and distance themselves from the very thing that gives them a leg up no matter their class or circumstance. 

White privilege is an inherent gift that all white people benefit from just by virtue of being white. You can put a poor white person in the same space as a poor Black person, and the white person is going to be viewed as somehow better no matter their station. 

White privilege is about opportunity. 

Being the smartest, most educated and experienced person applying doesn’t guarantee a Black person will get a job, but a mediocre white person can get a job over them because of white privilege. 

White people made everything about race

My latest for theGrio discusses the social construct of race, whiteness, white privilege and white supremacy.

White fragility *is* white violence

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“I consider my writing to be a form of activism. It is my way of using my voice, my natural writing ability, and my words to speak up for myself and other Black people. 

It is a form of protest, in my opinion, and baby, protest is not supposed to make you feel comfortable. 

If you, as a white person, feel personally attacked by the things I say and write, that requires a level of self analysis that I can’t help you with. It’s not up to me to smooth it over for you and make it easier for you to digest.”

The frustrations of a Black woman who writes about race

Stop expecting Black women to perform “grace”

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The Oscars played in Angela Bassett’s face again, and in the wake of that disappointing moment, all white media can talk about is how she didn’t smile and clap for Jamie Lee Curtis, a Hollywood nepo baby, who won for what essentially amounted to a cameo in this year’s biggest winning movie.

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Ben Stein, Stella Parton and Scott Adams walk into a bar

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Ben Stein is racist.

Stella Parton is racist.

Scott Adams is racist.

Racism is a part of daily life in America, whether it is as overt as people marching around in Klan uniforms or as subtle as someone making passive-aggressive negative comments about Black people in our presence. 

As much as we want to give most white people the benefit of the doubt, there usually comes a time when even our faves (or their siblings) disappoint us by saying something so outlandishly racist it’s hard to ignore. 

I had a recent experience on Facebook with a former co-worker who I always thought was just a nice older white lady. She showed up in the comments of one of my posts and completely showed her ass, and she doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on her ignorance even when she was called out by her fellow white people. 

Here is a list of white people I was extremely disappointed to find out were (undercover) racists
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recognizing when you are not the problem

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I don’t think this person truly knows why they do what they do nor why they chose to act this way to me. I certainly can’t explain it, nor do I feel the need to. 

What I do know is that they are not a good person, no matter how much they try to pretend they are. There is no integrity to be had when your intentions come from a selfish and self-serving place. 

I was open. I was honest. I did more than post platitudes on social media and act as if they were a reflection of my lived experience. 

I am my lived experience each and every day, and I always own it — the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

it’s not you; it’s them