Woman Fired For Telling Black Man To Stay In His ‘Hood’ While Walking His Dog

With phone cameras now being able to capture the minutiae of our daily lives, we are coming across more and more of the subtle racists that used to fall under the radar.

Such is the case for this woman who made racist remarks against a black man when she was walking her dog.

What she did not know was that the man she had encountered was in fact a best-selling author and activist who made the New York Times list, Frederick Joseph.

Joseph had started recording after she had already made the racist comment of asking him to stay “in his hood”.

He shared a post on Twitter with the caption,

“At the dog park in Brooklyn with my fiancé and this white woman was threatening to call police and told us to “stay in our hood” because she had our dog confused with another dog who had been barking loudly. So, I started recording and she tried to slap the phone out my hand.”

Her use of the term ‘hood’ was also called out for the appropriation of AAVE slang and tried to change her tune when he started recording. She also tried to play it off as if Joseph was the one to say it.

“Did you just say that to me?”, she can be heard saying.

The woman who has now been identified as Emma Sarley denied saying what she did while being recorded, a bystander was able to confirm that she did in fact make that statement.

Sarley who works for a virtual software company Bevy has since been let go from her job. In fact the announcement of her termination came the very next day after the release of the video.

“@BevyHQ has zero-tolerance for discriminatory behavior of any kind. Yesterday an employee engaged in behavior contrary to our values and has been terminated. We apologize deeply to all involved.”

Joseph later uploaded a video where he addressed the situation and said,

“While it’s unfortunate that she had to lose her job, I do think that this brings up an important conversation about accountability, especially in a country where Black and brown people, marginalized people as a whole, have seen so little of it, oftentimes having to bear the burden of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. I think that it’s important that people know that there are consequences for their actions, and I don’t think that it’s up to victims to have to coddle people who are engaging in abuse.”

Jospeh’s remarks while met with support were also met with backlash from people who flooded to his comment section to defend Sarley.

They also accused him of making too big a deal of things. Those however who had seen the woman’s reaction in the video even after being called out had no sympathy for her.

Other's further added that accountability for behaviour such as this could serve as a warning to others that this was not acceptable.