Social media posts exploded, including a tweet from noted civil
rights attorney Benjamin Crump painting Comrie, who by the way is
six-months pregnant, as a racist who was stealing the bike from the poor
innocent Black teenagers and then faking tears.
Dave Chappelle hasn't given in to repeated attempts to cancel him for … comedy.
Comrie’s employer, Bellevue Hospital shamelessly placed her on leave, calling the incident "disturbing."
This
is usually the part of the story where the falsely accused "racist"
slinks off hoping that eventually the events will be forgotten, but not
Comrie who courageously is fighting back against the slander with
receipts, and not just the metaphorical kind.
Last week, her
lawyer produced a set of records proving that, lo and behold, it was
Comrie who rented the bike and was then harassed by these teenagers who
physically kept her from accessing her ride home.
Like many
others, Crump quietly deleted the tweet in which he accused Comrie of
racism, quite possibly out of legitimate fear that she could take legal
action against such a potentially defamatory misrepresentation, but
without so much as saying he was sorry.
Perhaps Crump saw no need to apologize because he believes this is the
exception that proves the rule, that even though the bike was rightfully
hers, even though he wrongly jumped to a conclusion, he had a right to
do so based on how racist he believes our society to be.
But let’s be clear as crystal, he does not have that right. Nobody
has that right, nobody has the right to spew vile allegations against
another human being solely because of their skin color. In fact, there
is a word for that.
Crump’s baseless claim that Comrie’s tears
were fake and meant to elicit sympathy is itself a racist stereotype,
"white tears," they call it. Crump needed no evidence beyond the color
of her skin to conclude a fact he couldn't possibly know.
Put
yourself in her position. You’re accessing your Citi Bike and out of the
blue a gaggle of teens grabs it, surrounds you, and starts filming you.
Wouldn’t any normal person find this upsetting? Might not anyone,
especially a pregnant woman, call for help and eventually wind up in
tears?
It wasn’t so very long ago that New Yorkers were banging pots and
pans out of open windows to celebrate the nurses who braved COVID-19
while they worked from home. Now this nurse is smeared as a racist by
those fueling the fires of perpetual outrage.
The safe move for
Comrie after her brush with infamy would have been to apologize for
overreacting, to acknowledge how race made the situation complicated, or
nuanced, or something. Thankfully, this is not the choice she made.
Nor
is it the choice that Daniel Penny made following claims that his
chokehold which tragically led to the death of a homeless Jordan Neely
who was harassing riders was racially motivated.
What people like Comrie have learned after more than a decade of "cancel culture"
is that apologies don’t work, compromise doesn’t work. One must firmly
state that they are not guilty of their supposed crimes and demand
retractions.
And it might be working, celebrities such as J.K. Rowling and Dave
Chappelle have stood their ground against cancelation attempts and
succeeded even when it looked like they had destroyed their careers.
Until
recently, a mere allegation of racism, even if unproven, was enough to
destroy lives and livelihoods. And the only thing worse than being
called a racist was denying it, which the race zealots also have a term
for, "white fragility."
It's a neat trick worthy of witch trials, the easiest way to prove someone is a racist is if they deny it.
Well, it’s not going to work anymore.
We need more Sarah Comries, we need more people who will stand up for
themselves and for the truth when the canceling hordes come calling with
their digital pitchforks.
It takes guts, but ultimately, we must all refuse to be canceled.
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