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'Kroger Karen' is going viral for using a stroller to block a Black woman from leaving a grocery-store parking lot

Jun 17, 2020, 18:53 IST
Insider
Shaneeka Montgomery-Strickland filmed the encounter and live-streamed it on Facebook.Shaneeka Montgomery-Strickland/Facebook
  • A woman named Shaneeka Montgomery-Strickland says she was attempting to exit a Kroger parking lot when a white customer stood behind her vehicle and refused to let her leave.
  • The mother of three livestreamed the incident on Facebook, showing viewers the white woman and a young child positioned behind the bumper of the car.
  • Police officers arrived on the scene, and the two women gave statements to officers.
  • Montgomery-Strickland described the incident as "about the craziest thing" she'd ever experienced, pointing to racism as the cause of the encounter.
  • Online commenters have now dubbed the white woman in the video "Kroger Karen."
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As social-media posts capturing the problematic behavior of white women continue to circulate online, one Michigan woman has earned herself the online nickname "Kroger Karen" after standing behind a Black woman's car in a Kroger parking lot and blocking the fellow shopper from exiting the premises.

Shaneeka Montgomery-Strickland says she was grocery shopping with her three children at a Kroger in Livonia, Michigan, on Saturday when a white woman with a young child stood behind her vehicle and refused to let her leave the parking lot.

Montgomery-Strickland told Fox 2 Detroit the confrontation began inside the store when her son stepped on a shelf to reach a bottle of Gatorade. The other woman, upset by the boy's behavior, began yelling, she said.

"It was irateness," she said of the shopper's mood.

She said the situation escalated in the parking lot when the woman, who was pushing a young girl in a stroller, approached Montgomery-Strickland a second time and called her a "b----."

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Outrage online

Montgomery-Strickland began streaming the incident on Facebook Live — and the clip has stirred up outrage.

"I have a woman standing behind my car telling me I cannot leave. This is ridiculous," she said in the video, panning over to the other woman standing next to the rear bumper of her vehicle. "I'm out here trying to do my job, me and my kids — do you see this lady? Standing here behind my car refusing to leave."

Montgomery-Strickland added that she'd called the police in an attempt to get the woman to leave.

"All this stuff going on out here protesting and everything and this is what this woman is doing," she said in the livestream. "You cannot hold me here! You cannot hold me at a store!"

When the police arrived on the scene, the woman quickly approached them and could be seen gesturing toward Montgomery-Strickland and her children, expressing her displeasure with being recorded.

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In the remainder of the video, Montgomery-Strickland and a Kroger employee appeared to give statements to the police, and one officer could be heard saying "there's no law that's been broken, though" — though it's unclear what the officer was referring to.

In a follow-up livestream from her car, Montgomery-Strickland described the incident as "about the craziest thing" she'd ever experienced, though she discouraged her sons from name-calling.

"I don't like how she talked to me, I don't like how she talked to my kids," she said in the video. "And I refuse to shop in a place of business and have somebody act like that. I hate that the kids had to see that, but now they see. They were, like, 'That lady is racist,' and I say, 'Yeah, she is,' because there was no cause for it ... She basically attacked us without putting her hands on us."

In just three days, the videos have been viewed thousands of times and racked up comments from viewers outraged by the white woman's behavior.

"Another Karen," one commenter wrote, using the derogatory term for an entitled white women. "Literally losing their minds out there."

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"White privilege is being able to storm up to an officer while he is getting out of his vehicle and vulnerable," another wrote.

In the comments section, the mother of three added that she did not have the woman's name but that personal information was included in the police report. She also accused the store's security guard of standing outside "doing nothing" while the incident took place.

"This needs to be known. You can't just, like hush, hush about everything and keep on letting people get away with nonsense," she told Fox 2 Detroit. "I've gotten a lot of responses. People are very angry and upset about it because they say it makes no sense. What is wrong with people? Why are they still out here doing this after all that's going on, all the changes we're trying to make? After Black Lives Matter? It makes no sense."

Representatives for Kroger did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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