Two Black sisters in North Carolina were harassed standing outside of their apartment building by a white woman who couldn’t believe they could afford to live there, in her perceived “white space.”
Leisa and Chele Garris, residents of Camden Fairview Apartments in SouthPark in Charlotte, were waiting for AAA to jump their car when Susan Westwood began hurling racist threats at them.
Videos of the Oct. 19 incident were shared by Chele Garris on Facebook and have gone viral.
“Do you live here” Westwood says. “I’m white and I make $125,000 a year and I want to make sure that you’re all up in here.”
She also told them she was “f**king fabulous,” before she threatened to “bring out my concealed weapons.”
“Is your boyfriend here Is your baby daddy here Nobody cares, I’m white and I’m hot,” Westwood said. “You’re hanging around in a place you don’t belong.”
Another White Person Harrasing African American People
www.youtube.com
Elijah Anderson, a Yale sociology professor, writes about the concept of “white space” in his upcoming book, “Black in White Space”:
“In the white space, white people stigmatize anonymous Black persons by associating them with the putative danger, crime and poverty of the iconic ghetto, typically leaving Black people with much to prove before [trust]. The tolerated Black person in the white space is one who is ‘in his place.’
“Such a person is less likely to disturb the implicit racial orderwhite people as dominant and Black people as subordinate.”
So a Black person who isn’t in her right place, for example, here in this recorded incident, warrants a threat.
In the video, Chele Garris calls 911 and tells dispatcher that the incident is happening in front of her home.
“My car’s bad. I called AAA. This lady is bothering me in front of my door. Do you hear her”
“It surprised me,” she tells a police dispatcher. “I’ve been living here for over a year and I’ve never been treated this way. I’m a resident just like her.”
Charlotte PD said they’ve issued Westwood, “four criminal summons, including two counts of communicating threats and two counts of simple assault.”
A police incident report says the woman made threats of “bodily injury” and the victim told police “that she believed the threat could be carried out.”
In North Carolina, communicating threats (aka terrorist threat, malicious harassment, when someone threatens to kill or physically harm someone else), is subject to being “f**king fabulous” in a jail cell, house arrest or electronic monitoring her hot self, probation or fines for her recently unemployed backside.
While Westwood bragged in the video that despite what Garris and her sister did, she said:”I will still make $125,000 Monday morning.”
Not if social media has anything to say about it.
@GetSpectrum @Ask_Spectrum for those helping to email and contact spectrum, you all are greatly appreciated! Someone just provided me with these contacts. pic.twitter.com/oj08Mw5tKY
this planet is ghetto af (@_StaceeJ)
October 27, 2018
Sense of entitlement, meet reality.
She was fired on Sunday from Spectrum Enterprises, Charter Communications:
“The incident recorded in Charlotte is a blatant violation of Charter’s code of conduct and clearly disregards the company’s commitment to inclusion and respectful behavior,” it said. “As such, Ms. Westwood’s employment with the company has been terminated, effective immediately.”
“It’s so upsetting to know that today we have overt racism still going on in 2018,” Garris said.
