Joshua Black (@sirjoshuablack), a Black comedian and influencer in Nashville, Tennessee posted a TikTok that has since gone viral.
The TikTok captured an incident where Black was flagged down by a woman who began questioning him and accusing him of illegal activity—for the crime of being in his own apartment complex.
Watch the video here:
@sirjoshuablack White woman walked up to my car demanding to know why I was in the parking garage of MY apartment? Wow #foryou #foryoupage #racist #blacklivesmatter
The video, which currently boasts over 20 million views, began in the apartment parking garage with the confrontation between Black and the woman already under way, as she began accusing Black of breaking into cars.
"First of all, we have break-ins of our cars."
Black, as it turns out, had not only known about the car break-ins, but had been a victim of the theft as well.
He thus retorted:
"They broke into my car. They broke into my car five times."
Black—wearing an "everybody vs racism" hoodie—then turned the camera to himself and gave context.
"Hello, I live here. I've been living here for about five years."
"And then Karen walked up to me just now and was pestering me, saying, 'What am I doing following her?'"
"She came all the way to my car."
He then turned to her, asking:
"Did you call security yet? Do you want me to help you call security?"
The woman continued to accuse Black of breaking into cars, arguing his outfit fit the description of the car thief.
"The description is exactly what you're wearing."
To which Black sarcastically retorted:
"That's crazy! So the description was me that broke into your car? They had on a pink hoodie, black nails?"
"I'm a f*cking influencer; if I wanted to, you'd be finished, weird f*ck."
The man accompanying the woman then mumbled a comment about Black "getting more likes" if he "raised his voice."
Black then fired back:
"I get more likes if a White woman walks up to me and asks what I'm doing in my apartment."
The woman, in an attempt to correct Black, stated she is Mexican and therefore not White.
Finally, Black left the conflict, saying:
"She's Mexican. All right, good day Karen and whoever the f*ck you are, goof."
According to the woman—who asked to remain anonymous—Black was "following her" and "tailgating" her as he drove his car behind hers into the apartment complex parking garage.
In an interview with News 4 Nashville, the woman claimed Black started the hostility in their interaction.
"When I asked him, 'Hey, do you live here?' that smile quickly faded."
"He started screaming at me and was like, 'Who are you, Karen?'"
"And he got a little too defensive about it, and I admit, obviously, in that video, I did too."
In an interview, Black stated upon parking his car, the woman ran over to him and began harassing him about his identity and reason for supposedly "following" her.
"There's a car in front of me at the gate. They go in and park, and then as soon as I park, a woman walks out full speed racing to my car, and she's like, 'Do you live here?'"
People on TikTok were appalled at the incident.
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It turned out not only did the outfit Black was wearing not actually fit the description of the thief, but the thief was identified as a White juvenile on a bike.
Black said of the incident:
"Unfortunately, that kind of racism is just normal, and we become numb to it as Black people."
