A white woman was reportedly fired from her job after being caught on video telling a Black couple to “stay in your hood.”
According to CBS 2, author Frederick Joseph and his fiancée Porsche Landon were with their dog in a Brooklyn dog park on Saturday night (Sept. 25). The woman, who has been identified as Emma Sarley, began shouting at the couple after she confused their dog with another canine that had been barking loudly. “She’s like, ‘You’re not from around here. Go back to your hood. Stay in your hood. Stay in your hood,’” Joseph told the outlet. “So, I’m like, ‘Stay in my hood?’ Right, like? ‘You’re being racist right now,’ and she’s like, ‘I’m not being racist.’”
Sarley also gave Joseph the finger and attempted to knock his phone out of his hand. He said that part of the confrontation was not caught on camera, but he tried to explain to the woman that she had his animal confused with another dog.
“I tried to explain, like, ‘I think you have the wrong dog,’ and then she just starts, like, going completely out of left field,” Joseph said. “At that point, I’m like, look, what you’re doing is deeply, deeply offensive, deeply racist, and I want to get this on camera because I don’t want there to be any misconceptions about what took place here.”
The video Joseph posted on Twitter caused backlash and several users referred to the woman as “Dog Park Karen.” Sarley has now reportedly lost her job because of the incident. Derek Anderson, the CEO of Bevy, announced her termination and gave an apology to Joseph and his fiancée. “@BevyHQ has zero tolerance for discriminatory behavior of any kind,” he tweeted. “Yesterday, an employee engaged in behavior contrary to our values and has been terminated. We apologize deeply to all involved.”
Check out the video of the incident below.