2w ago

'The Bear' writer arrested on train after complaint from white woman

www.newsweek.com

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?"

165 comments

"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.
- That... explains so much. Racists are fucking jealous that black people get to be oppressed??? Is it like some martyrdom by proxy fuckedupedness?
  
  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.
  
  They honestly think that black people and minorities have it on easy street.
  
  Yep. It’s like a child fighting for the attention of an abusive parent.
  
  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.
- They should be made to understood what it means to be a minority if they want that status.
  
  Moreover, throw them in jail legitimately, since they misused the justice system.
- I honestly had trouble parsing that statement until I read this comment; it was nice being stupid and ignorant for a minute.
- 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
- 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.
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.
- Us old white dudes have a responsibility to get involved in these events.
  
  Exactly…
  The only thing better is some old white grandma getting involved. Pretty sure sweet old ladies outranks an old “Susan”.
  
  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.
  
  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.
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.
- 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
- 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).
  
  There's an "aggressive" man on the train... each time we say something racist we feel in even greater danger. Halp.
"You're not the minority anymore."
It's a code for "you're in Trump America, now."
- It also makes 0 sense while still sounding racist, so definitely trumpian
- 💯
- its also a codework, its okay for us to say the N-word with the hard R.
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.
- But then how could they arrest you for resisting arrest?
  
  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.
- 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.
I don't like the headline. He has a name, you know, and it's Alex O'keefe.
- The headline makes it sound like he did something wrong too. Instead he was harassed because of a Karen
  
  Idk to me it was clear he did nothing wrong. In that case it would have said "because he did X ans Y" instead of basically "because of a Karen"
  
  Yeah, total bullshit.
  
  the final form of a karen, an old/ elderly white lady.
Conveniently, the officer body cam footage is “not available”. Absolutely insane they are making it sound like it’s his fault the train is delayed.
Sitting? While black? That's a paddlin'.
- sitting menacingly, -COPs
  
  He's sitting right towards us!
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.
- 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.
- Without due process, even that doesn't matter.
  
  He will just be labeled "antifa" now, without proof. This is how fascism usually works.
- wouldnt he still be "deported" to africa, because of his skin color, potentially.
  
  Nah, we don't deport people anywhere they might have tires to.
  
  Based on his skin color this man is clearly Laotian, send him straight to Vientiane! He can go peddle his scripts by the Mekong! (I'm joking)
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.
- 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.
  
  Yeah I can't make sense of it... Does she mean like, great replacement theory happened, and that white people were the minority now?
  
  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.
This just after a lynching happened in Jacksonville, Mississippi.
- Does the idea of a lynching happening in the US seem particularly far-fetched to you? If so I'd say that you're extremely uninformed. Also that's a weirdly specific alternative you're presenting lol
  
  Don't get the downvotes. Are we at the stage where asking for a source is bad now?
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.
- Sitting while black probably.
- 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.
  
  What is a WASP?
- Maybe this is why we need humanoid robots. So bigots have a decoy to be shitty to.
  Fuck man.
So he was sitting improperly? They didn't say exactly why it was 'improper' to begin with?
- He did it while black. That's clearly an arrestable offense.
- 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.
  
  The story never specified what the guy did though.
- Maybe he had his shoes on the seats and is now crying racism.
  
  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.
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.
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.
- 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.
  
  That must be the "freedom" everyone is talking about...
- non-compliance should result in getting booted from the train, not just a fine
  
  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
Damn if we see segregation you owe me a trillion
Shit like this happens every fucking day. This is news because the victim is famous.
Welcome to the new witch hunts. This time all over the US, not just Salem... the new improved forth Reich.
- This isn't a "witch hunt". It's racism. And it's been happening for quite a long time.
  
  The irony being the Atlantic slave trade had being going on around 150 years before the Salem Witch Trials
- If it is safe for you to do so.
  Some of us can't. We know who we are.
- and train with them
  with each other
  It helps with organization, which is what actually wins both movements and wars
- It’s expensive but worth it.
- While I agree in general, that wouldn't have helped in this case, and likely would have just made things worse. He couldn't draw on the Karen for being a racist piece of trash, and his next interaction was with the police, whom he certainly couldn't have drawn on. Then the cops would have trumped up the charges because he was armed, and he never would have seen the gun again after it disappeared into the evidence locker.
That should have been real easy:
“Ma’am, fuck off to another train car if you have a problem with the way someone is sitting and don’t ever waste our time again. Sir, have a nice day.”
Hope he finds that woman, conductor and police chief and sues their ass (like any good it will do, but at least the internet can make a public example of her).
Immediately pointed to me and told me to correct how I was sitting.
Old white women try to remember it's not 1952 challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
Commentators here acting like this is new racism under Trump. Racist police have been around since the 1992 song "Killing in the name" by Rage Against the Machine came out.
The lyrics clearly state that some of those who work in said forces, are actually the very same who burn crosses. AND now you do what they tell you.
- Pretty sure racist police have been around as long as police, which predates 1992 by a few centuries.
  
  https://ibw21.org/editors-choice/slavery-and-the-origins-of-the-american-police-state/
  
  I don't know. Did they have songs back then?
How does one sit "offensively" on a train? All the coverage of this seems to just skip over that. Was he sitting with no pants? Laying across 3 seats? This is a novel one for me.
- she meant he should sit at the back
  
  What is your source for this? Even the quote from above says "how" he was sitting, not "where". Did someone else have better coverage?
whoever wrote the article sucks
At least they didn't shoot him. (laugh/cry transition)
After reading that headline, for a second I was wondering how Anton Checkov had come alive again and was on a train.
OK, so, I literally just finished watching Lovecraft Country and I was thinking "this was so tragic, it's good to know history made things right and this kind of institutionalized racism doesn't exist anymore, now lets check Lemmy", oh shit...
- If you really think institutionalized racism doesn’t exist anymore, I have some bad news for you…
  
  thats why CRT was so heavily criticized by the right, eventhough its a concept mostly taught in law school, and the right cant really DEFINe what it was, because its such a complex legal term, they dont have a basis to argue on it. CRT trolling lasted like what 6 months, before it was dropped from the media. because CRT exposes the "racism' by the government/right wingers as an actual definable term, unlike WOKE.
So who is the minority now? And what flex does she think that means?
- its her excuse- shoe in for the n-word basically.
What will you do about it?
Stay on the train and punch the Karen in the face before getting off at the next stop.
This thread is strange- is this some kind of palintir/fsb operation to spread rage and despair? I'm so sick of having my emotions manipulated. Also some people should reflect on their misogyny maybe. And ageism, Americans have been trying to sell me their toxic ageism my whole life. And their racism, obviously, but also race shit stirring. Anyway fuck the internet, I left reddit because my brain was being messed with.. Back to books, Tony Morrison today.
Seemed odd about his own testimony, as quoted in this article, that he keeps avoiding to mention HOW he was sitting and whether he complied when told to stop it. Makes me picture one of these assholes who put their dirty shoes on a second seat in a full train.
His odd avoidance of the core of the issue made me search for other sources. Not surprising that a quick search supports most of this. Also, he refused to stop doing that, which he also does not deny as far as the quotes from this article go.
Then, he tries to use his celebrity status to order cops to harass an elderly woman, whose statement is irrelevant because apparently there are plenty of witnesses, including the train personnel and his own confession.
Then, he seriously tries to pull the race card.
And this is the hero of Lemmy?
Hat off the elderly woman and the police, though! Wish this kind of justice would happen when I'm on the train.
This has become a cesspool of disinformation. All the out of context Kirk quotes from the past few days (was still somewhere between nonsense and disgusting in context, but an entirely different statement), and another post claims that every day 0.25 % of the US population gets shot, and this lie somehow supports the trans agenda.
Disclaimer: Judging the situation as presented in available articles, as I don't know what really happened.
- You think a person should be harassed and arrested if they sit in public transit in a way someone doesn't approve of?
  If someone takes off their shoes, I should feel justified in calling the cops and subjecting them to police custody?
  he refused to stop doing that
  Doing what? You made an assumption about how he was sitting and decided it has heinous enough to havw police sicc'ed on him.
  This better be some well-crafted bait because I bit.
- whether he complied when told to stop it.
  He clearly says he did not comply.
  OTOH, I'm glad to see some magas showing up at Lemmy actually, maybe we can curb the infighting a bit.
- Thanks for bringing Kirk into this. Was most def needed.
  🤡🤡
- How he was sitting? Really? Fuck right off with your ridiculous ass.
- Disclaimer: Judging the situation as presented in available articles, as I don't know what really happened.
  Who writes such a scathing comment, and then admits that they have no idea what actually happened. For fuck sake
- I was about to agree with you, in that its kind of hard to really judge whats going on in this video without seeing exactly what happened prior to the recording -- but then you just jumped completely off the deep end into crazy.
- You're making a lot of assumptions. All we know is that in the end he was released, so they didn't actually have any reason to arrest him. Whatever the issue was with how he sat, there was no basis for arrest, and probably no basis to call the police at all.
  Maybe he did put his dirty shoes on the seat, but the article doesn't tell us. Nobody does. All we know is that they wanted to arrest him, but couldn't. Whatever he did wasn't serious enough for it and yet they tried and held up a train for it.
  It is of course only his side of the story. More info would help. But without more info, there's no reason not to believe that he was harassed mostly just for being black. It's not like this is the first time that happened.
  
  Maybe he was harassed for his skin color, but this article did leave out the core of what happened. It’s just as likely the treatment was deserved: we have no information either way. The article jumps right to we should be outraged, without actually saying enough of what happened. And yes, I’ve seen assholes on the train where I really wished the conductor would intervene
What is this world coming to?
- What is this world coming to?
  Fascism.
  But the US is way ahead on that.
Don't let me catch you slipping now
Racist old gal? not in this times where holy persons like Kirk exist. /s
WTF. She probably wears that face mask all the time, you know those weirdos that wears them even if they're not sick.
- You mean that white pointy one with the eye holes?

165 comments