In the caption of the Instagram post, he wrote, “An old white woman got on the train and immediately pointed at me and told me to correct how I was sitting. I refused, so she went to the conductor and complained. The conductor called the police and stopped the train,” he said.

O’Keefe also says in the caption that the friend of the woman who called the police had said to him, “You’re not the minority anymore.”

A separate video about the incident has been uploaded by the user, Nalae, on TikTok, where it has quickly gone viral, having been viewed over 160,000 times as of reporting.

They said I was disturbing the peace by not leaving the train. They pulled me off the train and arrested me without even talking to the Karen who reported the one black person on the train. On the platform, the police detained me and interrogated me. Only black folks stayed nearby and recorded the arrest. When I demanded a lawyer and reminded them they didn’t even take a statement from the woman who complained they eventually released me. This country is growing more psycho by the day. What will you do about it?"

  • athairmor@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    “You’re not the minority anymore.”

    Jesus fucking Christ.

    This says so much. They think “minority” means a person who gets special treatment. That’s how fucking deluded they’ve become.

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      12 days ago

      That… explains so much. Racists are fucking jealous that black people get to be oppressed??? Is it like some martyrdom by proxy fuckedupedness?

      • faythofdragons@slrpnk.net
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        12 days ago

        Sorta. I was raised with this bullshit, so I can see the distortion of reality. I’m still unpacking all this in therapy myself, because it’s a whole worldview.

        First off, they’re woefully uneducated about history. My high school in Oklahoma briefly touched on the Civil Rights Movement and tried to pass it off as something that was over and done. Rosa Parks got arrested, the white people were shocked that this could happen, they had a sit-in party at a milkshake stand (they didn’t talk about any of the pushback that got), MLK did his speech and now everything is fine for black people, no more institutional racism, literally being taught in schools. Now, combine that with your own needs not being met, and the talking heads/politicans say that you’re not getting the aid you need because it’s going towards making hurt feelings better. There’s only so much money in the coffers, and you gotta be really hard up if you’re white, but it’s easy to get if you’re black.

        There’s also a heavy religious framing about ancestral guilt. Like, if God can make life suck for everybody because Eve ate an apple, and libs are trying to play god, it follows to reason they’d want to make your life suck for the sins of your great-great-great grandparents. It’s never outright stated, but if you listen to enough sermons, the puzzle fills in. Like, again, they think the civil rights movement fixed everything, so they think white people have atoned for their transgressions, but the pastor says libs are in consort with satan and can’t forgive like jesus, so that’s why they want white people to suffer.

        Edit: I want to make it clear that I do not personally believe any of that, it’s just what I was taught as a kid.

        • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          I appreciate you identifying where in the GOP’s propaganda they lead young people astray.

          People like you doing a retrospective autobiopsy via therapy can help those of growing up in other contexts protect young people from propaganda, and distribute to them the truth.

          Speak your truth! It’s only becoming more important as time goes on in this increasingly fascistic world.

        • RFKJrsBrainworm@sh.itjust.works
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          My favorite part of this is the only people making the ignorant racist lives suck are the Republicans taking everything not the left asking them to be tolerant…

          • Signtist@bookwyr.me
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            11 days ago

            It’s like that comic about the guy with a plateful of cookies telling one guy that ta third guy is going to take his singular cookie. There are 2 types of republicans - one that takes, and one that gets taken from just as much as the left. The prior group has convinced the latter group that the actual thief is the left, who are in just as bad of a position as they are, if not worse. That’s why they can’t believe it. They’re not taking everything, at least not enough to make ends meet most of the time, same as us. It’s the much smaller fraction of rich republicans that are doing the taking. The issue is that they can’t believe that truth, and so they lash out and become a completely different problem.

        • TheseusNow@lemmy.zip
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          This is why the term “color blind” is used by someone trying to go the right way, but still not getting it, which leads to the ignorance of their racism. In being blind you are blind to the fact that racism still exist and isn’t fixed. Then that leads to incorrect beliefs like “minorities are getting special priveleges and when they don’t have the same quality of life it is because of their own poor behavior” as opposed to acknowledging the systemic racism still in place.

          • faythofdragons@slrpnk.net
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            11 days ago

            Sometimes, but not always. I used to call myself colorblind, but I could see how the cops treated my black friends worse than they treated me. At one point, they rounded us up waiting at the bus stop (there was an abandoned restaurant by the bus stop, and the cops said we were trying to break in), and all my POC friends got frisked, but I was the only blonde girl, so I just got a talking to about how “hanging out with the wrong crowd will ruin my life”. Some of those kids are working on their PhD now, so “wrong crowd”, kiss my ass.

            I understood “colorblind” as a “skin tone has no bearing on how I interact with you, we’re all human”.

            I always thought that “everybody gets treated the same at first, adjust as we go along” was respectful, but then moved to the west coast and it’s apparently a horribly racist thing to do here, and I don’t understand why?? Something about how black people are going through struggles I can’t understand, but I also thought that everybody had struggles I don’t know about?

            Like, if I don’t make assumptions about somebody in a wheelchair, it’s a good thing and not ableist, but if I don’t make assumptions about a black person, it’s a bad thing and racist? I have never been able to understand how people up here think it’s less racist to stereotype an ethnicity.

            There’s also the problem with white “leftists” up here not actually knowing any POC and getting it from fucking facebook memes. Like, I had a white person once tell me, in all seriousness, that me saying “hey, what’s up” is appropriating AAVE and the correct thing to say in greeting to a black person is “I see and respect our differences”. I said that sounded patronizing as fuck, and she said I should join the kkk with that attitude.

            Unlearning racism has been an awful experience, really. I’m listening to what black people say they want, but that’s somehow still racist, and I’m so close to just giving up and doing what feels right to me.

            • Pieisawesome@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              10 days ago

              Colorblind is removing their identity.

              You are still a black, white, brown, etc. person (I’m using {color} from now on cause I don’t want to type an array of colors each time). The person’s experiences as a {color} person are valid.

              While you shouldn’t treat someone different because they are {color}, you should validate that they ARE different and celebrate those differences in an appropriate fashion.

              It’s like a friend coming out to you and you reply “I don’t care”, while that is not the worst way to respond and you mean well, you are invalidating WHO they are.

              I think this is much more eloquently illustrates my point: https://youtu.be/91O7q7D4xnU

              Consider therapy. It helps

              • faythofdragons@slrpnk.net
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                10 days ago

                Consider therapy. It helps

                Thanks, you must have missed where I said I’m slowly unpacking all this in therapy. My therapist says I’m doing good, and that I’m not a racist monster because I’m putting in the effort, but that doesn’t seem to be a common definition. In any case, I don’t call myself colorblind any more, even if I don’t understand why, people do react poorly, so I don’t do it any more. This is retrospective.

                It’s like a friend coming out to you and you reply “I don’t care”, while that is not the worst way to respond and you mean well, you are invalidating WHO they are.

                But when I called myself ‘colorblind’ I wasn’t saying “I don’t care”, I was saying “Okay, tell me what that means”.

                Like, when I came out, I absolutely hated how big of a deal people made about it. I had people “validate that I was different”, but it felt like they were just making fun of me for being different because it was all weirdly patronizing. All this nonsense about “it’s okay that you like boys and girls, you’re still my friend” when I’m an adult who is into men and women, and I wouldn’t have started hanging out with you if I thought you didn’t like gay people? I’m still me, I haven’t changed, and stroking my ego is just telling me that you feel weird around me now that you know I’m not ‘normal’.

                I still felt stereotyped and unwelcome, even though they were being “inclusive”, and I don’t want to do that to black people. I don’t understand why that’s racist.

        • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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          thats because they are afraid of the power and riches they accumulated through subjugating minorities, will be used against them in retribution, so they go the extra mile , with the help aristocrats/oligarchs to keep the status quo. also white people are extra defensive when discussing racism as well. even if they arnt outwardly racist(closeted racist), i witness how they act around people that are not white , especially when they either look or approach near them.

          during covid, like in the midst of it a older white lady dint like i was getting on the train the same time i was, she said it was not nice to go before “an older lady”, i muttered bitch under my breath, you would do that to another white man or lady, but you would do that to a POC, because you will get immediate clapback from a white person over a POC. AS FAR as covid was concerned she wasnt masked, or properly masked. the entrance to train was large enough where 2 people can get on the same time.

      • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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        on reddit, people said racist white people like that are afraid they do the same thing to them, of how they persecuted the blacks, so they act extra “im not racist, your being racist for calling out my race”. they also try to deflect white privilege as a non-existential issue.

    • TheHighRoad@lemmy.world
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      I honestly had trouble parsing that statement until I read this comment; it was nice being stupid and ignorant for a minute.

    • jjagaimo@sh.itjust.works
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      Its a tale as old as time that they’d strip protections against racism, implement racist laws, and then pretend as if slavery was so long ago that it didn’t matter anymore. It was literally happening not a decade after the Civil War ended

    • FosterMolasses@leminal.space
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      Thank you. I’ve been looking for a single comment to explain the lunatic doublespeak she was using.

      MAGA is literally a cult of fascism.

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    I mean what the actual fuck?!? If this is only half as egregious as this is being portrayed I wish I had been there. I would have told that old white Karen to shut the fuck up. And I don’t even know who this dude is. And I’m an old white dude.

      • billwashere@lemmy.world
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        Exactly…

        The only thing better is some old white grandma getting involved. Pretty sure sweet old ladies outranks an old “Susan”.

        • proudblond@lemmy.world
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          I’m only 42 but I hope to be brave enough one day to be such a “sweet old lady” who kicks some ass.

          • Thassodar@sh.itjust.works
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            Sounds like there’s a market for “Comfy Steel-toed Boots For Ass Kicking Old Ladies”. Let me find that 100k I put under my mattress…

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        I know cops are scary, but white people need to realise their power in a situation like this. Being white gives you like a +80% modifier in interactions with the police. Even just getting in the space and being a clueless white dude asking questions spreads that modifier to allies in proximity, including those being arrested.

        By getting involved you raise the expectation of civility, because our fucking society is racist.

        • Xaphanos@lemmy.world
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          “I was there and heard that Karen screaming (fill in a bunch of racist shit). She said no one would take his word for it. You see that trash on the ground? She threw it at him and missed. He was minding his own business and tried to walk away, but she wouldn’t let him be. Then she started going on about (aliens or jewish lasers or some real schizo shit). I think she’s having a breakdown or fit.”

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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          Can confirm. I regularly cuss out and yell at cops that are harassing homeless people, not even violating their rights, other than their 14th amendment rights to freedom of movement.

        • Zahille7@lemmy.world
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          There are clips online of crazy white people straight up attacking the cops, and the cops are just like “well shit, now what?”

        • prole
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          11 days ago

          It’s so fucked up that this is true

      • Hanrahan@slrpnk.net
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        12 days ago

        Indeed and I do (60, 6’2" 100kg white guy) here in Australia, and it’s most often some old white entitled woman. (My 82 yr oldmother is one of these, she doesnt think our First Nations people should be allowed on the same sidewalk as her)

        Problem is I then get called out for being a pedo/rapist , this has happened a couple times for calling out some racist bitch.

  • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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    The conductor called the police and stopped the train," he said.

    Well there’s your problem, the conductor should have told this woman to do one. Let’s say that he had his feet up on a seat, or whatever, in what world do you stop the train service entirely for that.

    • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Imagine grounding a plane for this.

      Interrupting everyone else’s life because yours is inconvenienced, not even impacted, should not be allowed.

      Entitled mess of a human

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      I am thinking she didn’t go to the conductor with the actual complaint. Instead, like the Central Park Karen, she probably came up with some horror story of the man assaulting her or some such. He noted, after all, that they didn’t even take her statement when arresting him (for no reason).

      • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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        There’s an “aggressive” man on the train… each time we say something racist we feel in even greater danger. Halp.

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    I’m sick of the police getting involved and actually acting when no explicit law has been violated. If a law isn’t violated, they should never ever put their hands on a citizen in any way. Detaining someone without actually arresting them should result in immediate firing of the police. If you can’t press charges, you shouldn’t act.

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        You watch the video? - They said to him stop resisting even though they hadn’t placed him under arrest. Cops abuse their power all the time. I am saying they have no right to handcuff you or even touch you or order you off a train unless you committed an actual crime that they can place you under arrest for. You shouldn’t be forced to leave a train like this if you haven’t broken any kind of standing law.

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          The police are now trained to say “stop resisting” for their body cameras, which provides the pretext for additional charges. They throw as many charges as they possibly can hoping one or two stick if it gets plead down.

          I haven’t watched the video but I totally agree that it’s inappropriate to order him off the train in this instance. They can conduct their criminal investigation right there. The fact that these incidents are allowed to get to the police is the frightening part; that people who reported him need to go to jail, and the conductor should be at a minimum investigated.

        • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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          they frame evidence all the time, either by making it up, or trying to use it as an excuse to escalate. i suspect the latter.

    • GroundedGator@lemmy.world
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      Sounds like they created the violation in this case. They threatened arrest for disturbing the peace if he didn’t comply and remove himself from the train. They are always able to manufacturer reason for detainment and threatening arrest.

  • DarkSideOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Luckily he is American. If he was a legal migrant having been booked would be considered a visa offense and he could be sent to a concentration camp.

    • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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      Luckily he is American famous.

      The usual story here for Americans is that they get arrested for resisting arrest and assulting a police officer and then get sentences to 10+ years in the local gulag.

      Immigrants instead get sent to the camps for deportation.

      He’s well enough known, there were enough cameras and he’s media/white american savvy enough to avoid the worst outcomes.

  • BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world
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    Most Americans don’t realize just how deeply racist some people are in this country, I’ve seen similar behavior before from white women, towards a black kid who was just hanging around in a library, and now these shitty people feel even more emboldened.

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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      The “You’re not the minority anymore” part was what made me do a double take. The level of delusion these people engage in is absolutely insane.

      • prole
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        Yeah I can’t make sense of it… Does she mean like, great replacement theory happened, and that white people were the minority now?

      • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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        There’s a lot in this story that could use clarification, but that quote takes the cake. And I would love to know, were that even true, how in the world it justifies what was to follow. I’m not deranged enough to just get this.

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    12 days ago

    Jesus Christ. Probably gave the bitch a bit of nostalgia for the “good ol days”. Also, what seating position was he doing that she took offense to? Because I don’t think there’s any seating position that could be considered offensive.

    • Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone
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      For WASPs any position that isn’t upright, knees together, feet on the floor is disrespectful. Whether he was just slouching or maybe leaning over in the seat, who knows other than him.

      And even if he was, who fucking cares? The entitlement to think you get control over how random strangers sit in public is crazy. The only official rule I could even think of to begin justifying this is to not lay down completely when there are no seats available, but nothing in the article indicates anything like that. And attempted arrest is an insane overreaction.

    • Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club
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      The dropdown menu just doesn’t offer them the option for ‘was on a whites only train’, prob an admin error that will be soon corrected.

      /s

      But dickishness does/should have some consequences. Obviously not handcuffs consequences tho.

      Someone not occupying more than one sit on a public transport isn’t the worst thing to gatekeep.

      How it can escalate to calling the police idk.

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        If he had his feet up on another seat, and said “go fuck yourself” instead of “no” (which is a scenario compatible with the description). He still shouldn’t have been arrested.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          I disagree. If the conductor tells someone to stop being an asshole and they curse back, they’re belligerent and noncompliant, and it’s reasonable to have the police remove them from the train.

          • prole
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            11 days ago

            Remove from the train ≠ arrested

          • m0darn@lemmy.ca
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            I disagree. If the conductor tells someone to stop being an asshole and they curse back, they’re belligerent and noncompliant, and it’s reasonable to have the police remove them from the train.

            Cool, but that’s not disagreeing with what I said.

  • RandomlyGeneratedName@lemmy.world
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    The sad part is this happens all the time for non-famous people of color and the outcomes are worse. Often the cops will throw them in jail for “resisting” or some other made up bullshit charge. His fame and the cameras saved him from likely worse outcomes.

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    This is just stupid. And I mean, the arrest. You Americans seem to be subject to arrest for the stupidest things.

    Putting your feet on a seat is gross. The guy should have complied with the indication to put them down. Non compliance should have resulted in -at most- a fine. This is what would had happened in my country, and my guess, in the majority of places in the world.

    • Entertainmeonly
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      Laws are written in ways they can be used at the discretion of the power. Their discretion, their prerogative, their biase, their bigotry. All laws written to apply only when the power chooses are not law, but privilege.

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          Still trying to figure out which felonies get you deported and which ones get you a seat at the table. Starting to think its not about laws at all here.

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            A “seat at the table” these days requires a heady mix of culpability, and wealthy/connected enough to be useful to someone more powerful. Just monied or just a phone-call away from prison ain’t gonna cut it. That said, the clowns we see doing this are at the kid’s table.

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        And if they won’t, especially if they’re belligerent (we don’t know), it’s fair for the operator to have the police remove them.

        There’s a lot missing from the story and it is written for racist outrage, but it’s also plausible it was some self-centered asshole getting what he deserved