Warning: This article contains graphic language.
Like most Americans, I’ve consumed my fair share of viral stories on the internet over the years—some funny, some heartwarming, some totally insane.
I never once thought that I ever would be at the center of one myself.
What I’ve learned in the weeks since has shown me with disappointing clarity how deep the rot in American media and social culture has spread.
The events of the night of Nov. 19 play over and over in my head. There is no escaping it.
I was out on a jog with my two children when I noticed a pickup truck driving behind us slowly, which should have passed but didn’t. My maternal instinct kicked in, and I jumped the curb with the stroller and darted toward the nearest house.
As I turned up the driveway, the driver pulled in behind me. He began asking me questions: “Can I help you with something?” and “You looking for someone?”
I avoided contact, hoping he would go away.
I awkwardly pushed my son in the stroller up the stairs to the porch to seek help. After ringing the doorbell, I glanced behind me. From what I could tell in the dark and at a distance, the person behind the wheel looked like a white man—although race was the furthest thing from my mind in that moment.
I asked if he lived there. He said he did, but I said I didn’t believe him. It didn’t matter what he said at that point. I was fearful and paranoid, my mind racing through the worst possible outcomes. I then ran with my kids and met up with my husband at a neighbor’s house.
When we returned to retrieve the stroller, a woman stepped out of the front door and told me that it was her husband, DaMichael Jenkins, who had pulled in with the car.
I was embarrassed and began apologizing for the misunderstanding. When we left, I was under the impression that the situation was resolved, a case of maternal panic overcoming logic.
But this is the 21st century, and the entire incident had been captured on the Jenkins’ doorbell camera. Two months later, the video ended up in our neighborhood Facebook group, and shortly after, it was taken to the media.
That’s how I became the “Stroller Karen.” Because Jenkins is black and I am white, I was branded a racist.
Since then, I’ve seen versions of my story told, with varying degrees of truth, in media outlets all over the world. As it spread, the death threats against me and my family soon followed—so many that I’ve stopped counting.
The media picks its sources, shapes its narratives, then chews up and spits real people out in its wake. Plenty of outlets happily published their one-sided stories or ran their podcast interviews without even so much as asking me for a single comment.
The Jenkins seem intent on keeping the controversy going. They continue to say I never made a sincere apology, which is often presented as fact by media outlets despite the multiple apologies I gave that very evening, as well as a public apology I posted the moment it hit our neighborhood Facebook group and a subsequent video I posted on my social media asking for the Jenkins’ forgiveness for my misunderstanding.
A number of mutual neighbors, one of whom is a lawyer, tried to arrange a sit-down between us to de-escalate the situation, but the Jenkins declined. The word “trespassing” was mentioned to one of the neighbors, so I was advised by the lawyer not to revisit the Jenkins home to apologize again.
In a rage-addicted media landscape, a visceral gut reaction to protect my kids became a case of “racial profiling.”
That version of the story generates more engagement, more clicks, and more anger. Anger leads to mobs. And social media mobs don’t seek truth; they seek a villain. Once they latch onto a target, no explanation or apology is enough.
I see this in my inbox every single day from keyboard warriors who claim to fight for justice, but use as their weapons some of the ugliest, most misogynistic language I’ve ever encountered.
They feel so righteous in their rage they don’t even bother to hide their identities. Denisse from Los Angeles wrote in: “I hope you choke on a huge c— you stupid white rhythmless (sic) unseasoned b—.” Sammy, all the way from Paris, said: “You should be hanged in public.” Carlos from Kalamazoo, Michigan, wrote to my husband: “I would have shot your stupid a– wife for even stepping in my property.”
And those are some of the less violent threats.
The keyboard warriors have also targeted my family’s small businesses. My husband co-owns a small business, which received dozens of threatening phone calls, which led to the decision to close the shop temporarily out of concern for the safety of the staff. I co-founded an online workout program that has also received its own share of hate.
My company’s social media channels—the lifeblood of our following—have been inundated with these same falsehoods, slurs, and threats, leading to irreparable damages.
The outrage mob has, for the most part at least, moved on, searching for its next victim, but the wreckage remains.
My family will never be the same. My children don’t understand why we had to leave our home, why their parents are so wary, why their mother cries at night.
The people who sent death threats, who called for my suffering, who delighted in my downfall—some of them will never face consequences.
The journalists who spread lies and omitted truths will move on to their next story, never looking back at the lives they’ve shattered. And for what? A viral moment? A fleeting false sense of moral superiority?
The night never ends for those of us left in the ruins. But perhaps the real horror isn’t that this happened to me. It’s that it could happen to anyone.
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This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
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