Sarah Comrie Deserves Her Good Name Back

By now, you may have heard about the story of the newest New York City “Karen” (the term refers to an officious or panicky white woman freaking out in public, usually in a supposed expression of racial bias or generalized “white privilege”). Her name is Sarah Comrie, she is a nurse at NYC Bellevue Hospital, and on May 13 a video was posted to the internet purporting to show her having a “freak-out” while trying to take a Citi Bike (New York’s bike-rental service) claimed by four young black men. The narrative being sold is that this woman tried to steal a bike that one of the (many) men in the video had rented and cried “fake white-woman tears” to try and get them in trouble before backing off. That’s it, that’s the story.

As expected for world-historical crimes documented by camera, the reaction on social media was immediate, escalatory, and insanely brutal.

And it was all based on complete nonsense. Oh, well.

As it turns out, Comrie has, and is more than willing to produce, the receipt for her bike purchase. NBC New York then went and cross-checked it with the viral video and found that the serial numbers matched up. She was innocent. It was her bike. I have no idea whether those kids thought that they had a genuine case or whether they were perpetrating a staged “racism prank” on her for viral kicks, but they were 100 percent out of line in every respect.

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