New York Magazine has scraped the bottom of the barrel to carry on its hoary opinion slinging and attention economy. But two of the disgraceful practitioners, Jonathan Chait and Olivia Nuzzi, are woefully unsuited and too heartless for the task.
The moral turpitude from the monsters who crawl on Vesey Street was very well-known in the five boroughs even before the pandemic. Just before any New York Magazine staffer entered a venue, the bartender would clang a bell and announce to the barflies with a stertorous holler that they could stay at the bar at their own peril. The door would open with an ominous squeak and the bartender would distract the vicious predatorial arriviste with charm and, if necessary, a free drink to avoid an Adam Platt takedown. It wasn’t always easy to appeal to the New York contributor’s narcissism and barracuda-like hello in these first vital minutes. But the bartenders did a decent job, even when their lives sometimes ended that very night.
The bartender’s honorable distractions usually offered you a few minutes to give the New York contributor the slip. You’d flatten bills on the bar, placing them just under the check presenter, and then you’d discreetly walk away, hearing the bloodcurdling sounds of the New York writer planting his vampiric fangs into the bartender (along with the bartender’s helpless screaming). You hoped that the generous tip would be enough to help cover the bartender’s funeral expenses. We New Yorkers do try and look out for each other.
Or, to put it a less inventive way, approximately 85% of the people who work at New York Magazine have the moral instincts of a striped hyena.
This is all common knowledge in media circles. Actual facts.
The striped hyena will often pretend to be dead when attacked and will stop at nothing to attack anyone — even a predator of greater size — in a dispute over food or, in this case, the expression of needless cruelty. Follow any New York contributor who gets pushback for a vile and disproportionately callous tweet and the New York contributor will pretend as if she is dead and not there. Which is precisely what Jonathan Chait and Olivia Nuzzi did in the last few days, of which more anon.
You see, these contributors are secretly savoring your attention in their notifications! They’re converting your likes and favorites to justify why their mediocre thoughts should translate into regular television appearances! They are forwarding all of it onto editor-in-chief David Haskell to prove — in an age of heightened media layoffs that always wound the wrong people — just why they should remain employed after writing such garbage hot takes as “Why Liberals Should Support a Trump Republican Nomination” when they’re refusing to disclose their conflicts of interest. (Jonathan Chait’s embarrassingly smug and insufferable article, which seriously suggested that Trump’s Presidency would follow the flagstones established by Arnold Schwarzenegger as California Governor, was rightly named one of “the worst takes of the 2010s” by The Outline.)
chait update: he has deleted the BOFA tweet which, as i understand it, is a felony in every state pic.twitter.com/t2GyarxaeK
New York contributors — specifically, the sophomoric and sociopathic pundits Jonathan Chait and Olivia Nuzzi — represent a repugnant breed of amoral Chuck Tatum types who view real life as a joyless sudoku puzzle to be filled in with superficial findings. Chait actually believes he’s some intellectual, but lacks any ability to discern clear satire or to comprehend common lingo. Nuzzi masquerades as as journalist, believing that a white supremacist’s musical taste represents some unique human insight that will make her name. And the media scarfs this up. When Spin‘s Jeremy Gordon actually followed up with Depeche Mode on the Richard Spencer question, it was a dark day in journalism. But even Gordon was savvy enough to understand that there was something preposterous in running with such a story. It’s a pity he never thought to go to the source of this nonsense, which was Nuzzi, and interrogate why such a nothingburger “bombshell” from a white supremacist resonated as much as it did. But then media people trust media people too much.
Journalism should never be about superficial attention. But when you’re as mediocre as Chait and Nuzzi are (and it’s worth nothing that Nuzzi really wants to be Ann Coulter: so stop calling her a journalist already), when you never have anything fresh to say, it’s often necessary to venture into bestial waters and play the attention economy game.
Both of these tweets are without wit or humanity. It says a great deal about New York Magazine’s hideous atmosphere and Haskell’s complicit approval of eyeballs by any means necessary that these tweets would be published within days of each other.
I have my issues with Joe Biden. But you would need a heart of stone to not be genuinely moved by the way that Biden reached this stuttering kid and gave him hope. So much hope that the kid went onto support him at the Democratic National Convention. Chait isn’t delivering a “spicy take.” He’s conveniently ignoring responsibility for his vile words, falsely claiming that there was something more “refined” to his tweet. No, there isn’t. And isn’t it funny how pundits never seem to have the time to address criticism?
Political leaders have always taken time out of their schedule to speak one-on-one with their constituents. It’s literally part of the job. And in the case of Biden, it most certainly is “high-leverage use” of his time.
As for Nuzzi, she’s a cocky and callous 27-year-old who sold her soul for a pittance. One would expect someone to turn into a heartless cynic much later in life. But that is not the Clay Felker tradition and Nuzzi is on the Ann Coulter fast track. Nuzzi is, of course, referring to how Biden lost his first wife Nelia and his one-year-old daughter Naomi in a 1972 car accident and how Biden also lost his son Beau in 2005 because of brain cancer. Aside from the complete dismissal of how trauma, or grief, has become one of Biden’s most effective ways of connecting with people, Nuzzi fundamentally does not seem to understand the way trauma works. Much like depression, one can relieve trauma throughout one’s life — sometimes in crushing waves, sometimes in little rivulets. That Biden has used his trauma to relate to everyday people should be the focus here. That he also used trauma to give a crying Meghan McCain solace on a memorable 2017 appearance on The View should also be worthy of attention. This is where the pundit should opine. You take in the obvious developments and offer a unique spin. But, like Chait, Nuzzi has nothing but repugnant superficiality.
Chait and Nuzzi are woefully unsuited to opine about this election. Because, for professional sociopaths like them, empathy never factors into the political picture. Even after hope and empathy were the basis of Obama’s meteoric rise to the White House in 2008. Even though empathy was the very message Biden was offering in his final night speech at the DNC.
Empathy is, in short, the very quality that any pundit should be focused on during the next 74 days. It is the very quality that helped Biden to raise $70 million during DNC week. But if you don’t actually have empathy — as Chait and Nuzzi clearly don’t — then you’re in no position to offer useful context in this presidential election.
Chait and Nuzzi’s disgraceful tweets were roundly ratioed. But they were both too cowardly to respond to the complaints. They couldn’t read the room. And if you can’t read the room, you have no business calling yourself a journalist, a pundit, or a media expert of any kind. Especially when you dance around the truth like a sociopath.
The first night of the Democratic National Convention offered the kind of tepid and largely uninspiring presentation that could very well keep Trump in office for a second term.
I watched much of the interminable DNC coverage tonight, waiting for Jerry Lewis and Sammy Davis, Jr. to show up, and I’m sorry, but I demand better. Business as usual isn’t going to rid us of that evil man in the White House. This is the most important election of our lives. Phoning it in with condescending montages and feel-good bullshit isn’t going to cut it.
Aside from the passionate pizzazz from Bernie, who decried authoritarianism against the incongruous backdrop of chopped wood, and Michelle Obama’s mild concession that Trump was ill-suited to the Presidency (which is a bit like saying that breathing in carbon monoxide is bad for you: sure, it’s something you need to say, but it’s hardly the foundation for the brio one sees in, oh say, the good King rallying the troops in Henry V), this was a largely comatose affair that could have played on any UHF station twenty years ago, complete with a cameo from Tom Vu telling you to come to his seminar. And even if my ridiculous transposition were to actually transpire, I’m pretty sure Vu would have been the liveliest and most memorable figure.
Fake smiles propped themselves up, tendering platitudes and quips that could have been cribbed from a cornball Hallmark card. Kloubuchar’s sham dentition, in particular, was truly a phony crocodile look for the ages. I’ve seen that self-serving look espoused by far too many cutthroat types in corporate boardrooms. But few of these speakers had any plans and they never espoused anything close to real empathy over the many people suffering throughout the nation right now. Even an In Memoriam montage for the 170,000 Americans killed by COVID played at a remarkably brief clip, as if some twitchy kid hopped up on Mountain Dew in the control room was randomly determining the trajectory of the broadcast. John Kasich looked as if he was between holes on a golf course and looked eager to return to the game. You resented him for being there. Eva Longoria looked better prepared to host some VH1 special rather than one of the major political congregations of the year.
Where was the true compassion for the millions of Americans who are unemployed or who face eviction right now? Where was, in short, the real emotional conviction? We’re living in a hellscape. Let’s not forget that. Read the national temperature and it’s pretty clear that this isn’t the kind of environment that you organize a harmless little potluck over. We are in a place that demands mobilization and action and passion and conviction. Sure, it’s nice to know that Biden talks to regular people while riding Amtrak. But it’s a sign of how far our standards have plummeted that this tepid corporate nonsense, with its overwrought tunes and those relentless bullet points of info reminding what each speaker had done, has apparently caused so many to mist up or to express “how proud” they are to be a Democrat. It turns out that being a risk-averse neoliberal is a bit like being a member of Rotary International. You pat people on the back for saying nothing special and then you use your card to get the 10% discount at Denny’s.
Frankly, I was mostly appalled and deeply uninspired. Only Bernie’s promised appearance tonight kept me watching. You can’t act as if the millions of people from many backgrounds who mobilized behind Bernie never existed. Hell, you can’t pretend that real working people and real unemployed people who are seeing their life savings and mental health nosedive don’t exist. The Democrats are making the same damn mistake they always have. They act like the party of the middle-class and they never come across as the party of the people. And if they’re not careful during the next three nights, Trump is going to swoop in just as he did in 2016 and speak to these very real people in ways they want to hear. And these people, desperate for anything, will buy it. And we’re going to be in a sizable cesspool from which we will probably never be able to escape. The hell of it is that mainstream Democrats never want to hear this. But they’re the ones who really need to. Because they’re the ones who put their fingers in their ears and say “Ka Ma La I can’t hear you.”
I’m starting to fear we’re going to lose this. And we really can’t. If Trump is re-elected, it’s going to permanently break our country. I’d put my own passion into trying to get people to vote for the greater good. But the problem here is that the so-called greater good gives me nothing to be passionate about. And I’m not someone who is ever going to offer fake passion. It’s the job of the Biden campaign to close the deal. And the present presentation format simply isn’t going to cut it.
Yesterday morning, we released the latest episode of The Gray Area.
This is the most ambitious story we have ever told. It takes place in two parallel universes and follows numerous characters between 1994 and 2023. “The First Illusion” is the second chapter of an exciting seven part epic that involves parallel universes, lost love, identity, forgiveness, compassion, fate, fortune tellers, mysterious Englishmen, strange interdimensional creatures named Chester, a wildly exuberant alien fond of hot dogs and Tony Danza, and life choices.
For listeners who don’t want to wait two weeks for the next chapter, we also have all seven parts (as well as a great deal of behind-the-scenes material) available for Season 2 subscribers at grayareapod.podbean.com.
Here’s the synopsis for Chapter Two:
It’s January 11, 2011. The world is similar, but it is also quite different. Chelsea reconnects with her best friend Alicia and takes the opportunity to correct her past mistakes, including rebuilding her relationship with Maya. But the shadow of her abusive mother and the presence of an eccentric man who is quite keen on hot dogs and the benefits of being obsequious may uproot this hard-won battle to claim a better life. (Running time: 52 minutes, 6 seconds)
Written, produced, and directed by Edward Champion
CAST:
Chelsea: Katrina Clairvoyant Maya: Tanja Milojevic Alicia: Elizabeth Rimar Young Chelsea: Nathalie Kane Carolyn: Emma Smuyla The Waiter: Jack Ward Jill Swanson: Ingeborg Reidmeier Thomas: Philip O’Gorman Chelsea’s Mother: M.J. Cogburn Hysterical Diners: Alexander Bill, Brandon P. Jenkins, and Tal Minear
and Zack Glassman as The Receptionist
Sound design, editing, engineering, and mastering by a bald man in Brooklyn who lost every apple bobbing contest he ever participated in during the last five summers.
The “Paths Not Taken” songs were written and performed by Edward Champion
Incidental music licensed through Neosounds and MusicFox.
Yesterday, I released the first of a seven part epic called “Paths Not Taken.” This epic, which has been a good two years in the making, is the centerpiece of the second season of The Gray Area, an ongoing audio drama that won the Parsec Award during the first season. The full tale involves time travel, parallel universes, lost love, identity, forgiveness, compassion, fate, fortune tellers, mysterious Englishmen, life choices, AI, revolutionaries who argue about breakfast, and a great deal more.
This is the most ambitious story I have ever told. It takes place in two parallel universes and follows numerous characters between 1994 and 2023. “Where Are the Lads of the Village Tonight?” — named after a pre-World War I novelty tune written and composed by R.P. Weston and Herman Datewski — is the first chapter. On one level, this is a very meticulous character study. The writing came after I spent a good six weeks doing field research and conducted numerous interviews with women to ensure accuracy, authenticity, love, and respect to the LGBTQ community. On another level, the entire epic is also a fun romp involving a winged intedimensional creature named Chester, a goofy alien obsessed with Tony Danza and hot dogs, and a lot of interdimensional travel.
You can listen to the first installment below:
We’re going to be releasing “Paths Not Taken” every two weeks between now through October. You can either wait for the next installment every two weeks or, for $20, you can purchase a Season 2 subscription pass to not only listen to all the episodes, but also access the scripts as well as a great deal of behind-the-scenes material.
While all of the stories can be enjoyed on their own terms, there are numerous hidden connections between all the stories for the attentive listener. Feel free to consult this episode guide for the entire series to follow the entire narrative trajectory.
Here’s the synopsis for Chapter One:
Chelsea Needham was once among the foremost leaders in tech. But something happened involving a fire and a death. And it got in the papers. Rumor reared its ugly head and Chelsea lost everything she had, with only a few friends left. While recovering from alcoholism, self-destruction, and losing the love of her life, Chelsea meets an enigmatic gentleman from England and a strange fortune teller who may have the answers to how she can reclaim her identity.
Karlos Dillard was a struggling Postmates worker who longed for fame and attention. But when a white woman cut him off accidentally during a delivery run, he found the opportunity to bend the truth and create an invented narrative in which he was a victim and she was a racist.
Karlos Dillard — a 27-year-old Postmates driver and self-published author in Seattle — was cut off by a 1996 Geo Metro during a routine food delivery. The car was driven by a white woman. Dillard is black. Dillard said that he was on his way to a restaurant he refers to as “Dick’s Dine-In” to pick up a food delivery for a Postmates gig. (There are five franchises of Dick’s Drive-In operating in Seattle. I have confirmed that all five restaurants do indeed offer Postmates delivery.)
Dillard claimed — in a series of Instagram stories — that he had the right of way to merge onto a street from Melrose Avenue in “Capitol Hill. Fucking Capitol Hill.” Dillard says that he was in the right lane. As the two lanes of the unspecified street were about to merge, Dillard says that the woman “freaked out and swung around me and got in front of me and slammed on her brakes and did a brake check.” He further claims that he nearly collided into the back of her car.
At this point, we can confine the details of this incident to, at worst, an act of minor road rage — a common act that anyone, irrespective of race or background, engages in when they are facing significant anxiety — an anxiety that the present pandemic and economic uncertainty has instilled in anyone. But Dillard wished to escalate this — without a shred of video evidence — into a flimsy claim that the unidentified Geo Woman had instigated an act of racism. He decided to take advantage of the present moment, in which the Karen meme of white women using their privilege to engage in repugnant acts of racism has proven to be quite popular.
Dillard, a Trump supporter whose online record shows a clear angling for attention and online fame, saw an opportunity to go viral. So he chased the Geo Woman down in his car and confronted her, releasing the below video excerpt onto Twitter, which, as I write this, has been seen more than four million times.
UPDATE: In an attempt to hide his evidence, Dillard removed the above Instagram post. The full video can be found below:
Karlos Dillard acted with great cruelty in his video.
The woman is clearly terrified. Her hands are shaking. She desperately covers her face and her license plate. Anyone who drives a Geo Metro built in another century is clearly not rolling in riches. So why go after her like this?
The Geo Woman feels attacked by the camera. We have no idea if she’s suffered any kind of past trauma or abuse. What a normal person with any shred of empathy would do here is put the camera down and give her the opportunity to apologize. But that’s not what Dillard does. He continues to call her a Karen, sticking his knife into the woman’s vulnerability and inflating his claim. He pans his phone to the woman’s car and gleefully announces, “Guys, this is her license plate number. She lives here. This is her address.” The woman shrieks at the top of her lungs, “No! No! Please! This is not true.”
“You cut me off!” bellows Dillard.
“No, I didn’t!” says the Geo Woman.
The woman begs for Dillard to leave her alone and to let her offer an apology for whatever happened. But what does Dillard do? He backs away from the woman and shouts into the Seattle streets for attention, “Guys! She flipped me off and then she tried to come home.” It’s vital to note that Dillard does not mention any act of racism in the early period of this unsettling video. Then he shrieks, “She did apologize for calling me a n**** and flipping me off” to anyone who will listen. And yet we don’t actually hear the woman acknowledging that she did any of this. Dillard is the person in the position of power here. And he knows it.
“Ma’am, what have I done to you?” barks Dillard.
“You’re going to ruin my life and you don’t even know me.”
Throughout the video, the Geo Woman repeatedly denies flipping Dillard off. “No, I didn’t! I swear to God!” she shrieks as she cowers with fear, desperately hiding the license plate and wailing with unbearable pain. She claims repeatedly, “I didn’t even see you!” in the full video.
Various onlookers look terribly confused as she cries, “He won’t listen to me!” An unspecified white man claims that he “saw her do it.” But what precisely did this man see?
Dillard eventually drives off and pulls across the street as various people try to comfort the Geo Woman. Then he returns to the scene, his camera off, and there is this exchange:
DILLARD: You literally cut me off. You flipped me off, correct? GEO WOMAN: I did. But it wasn’t the way.. DILLARD: Okay. GEO WOMAN: …you won’t let me finish.
[Is the Geo Woman confessing to accidentally cutting Dillard off? Or flipping him off? Or is she overwhelmed by the rapid fire nature of Dillard’s relentless questions?]
GEO WOMAN: I didn’t mean to. ‘Cause I was trying to… DILLARD: Then what did I do illegally? GEO WOMAN: Can I — can I… DILLARD: I had to merge. GEO WOMAN: I — Can I talk? DILLARD: Yeah. Go ahead. GEO WOMAN: I feel sorry… DILLARD: I have to… GEO WOMAN: (crying) My arm! My heart. DILLARD: Ma’am, you can’t just be going down flipping people off. GEO WOMAN: I didn’t know you were — I wanted to touch you because I wanted you to — I know. I understand. You are a stranger. We — look me in the eyes. DILLARD: You’re not going to be on Instagram. That’s not my deal here.
But going viral is most certainly Dillard’s “deal.”
The Geo Woman never once confesses specifically to flipping Dillard off. If anything, she extends empathy to him for accidentally cutting him off. Moreover, Dillard explicitly tells the Geo Woman — who is now a subject of ridicule — that she will not be on Instagram, betraying his pledge to clear up the misunderstanding privately.
In other words, Dillard’s video is not an act of social justice or even a noble fight for justice. It is an act of pure and unadulterated sadism, conducted by Dillard without a shred of compassion.
The other aspect of Dillard’s video that went viral was the Geo Woman announcing that she has a black husband. Here is the transcript:
DILLARD: You flipped me off! You flipped me off! GEO WOMAN: Sir? DILLARD: Don’t touch me! Do not touch me. GEO WOMAN: I’m trying to… DILLARD: You flipped me off! GEO WOMAN: I have a black husband! DILLARD: I don’t care. Why did you flip me off? GEO WOMAN: You were totally calling me something that I’m not.
There are several important aspects to note here that reveal both the truth of what happened and Dillard’s questionable motivations.
1. At no point does the Geo Woman say that she flipped Dillard off or committed racism.
2. The Geo Woman is still processing some shouting guy with a camera confronting her. And instead of giving the Geo Woman the opportunity to process what’s going on, he instead bullies her with the question, “Why did you flip me off?”
* * *
What is the basis for Dillard’s claims of racism from this woman? In an effort to understand why, I have downloaded and reviewed the eighty photos and videos that Dillard uploaded to his Instagram stories feed on June 22, 2020 for this story. You can download the collected files here. After careful study, it’s pretty clear that there are too many contradictions and constant additions to Dillard’s story for it to be accepted in any court of law. Of the professed brake check and racism, Dillard doesn’t possess any evidence other than his own word, which constantly shifts over the course of his Instagram feed. He also takes many opportunities throughout these Instagram stories to promote his book and his merchandise.
There is a short video of the woman’s Geo facing Dillard, the Geo pulling back with its driver’s side open, and the woman’s Geo then driving off. Dillard has not posted any video demonstrating that the Geo Woman acted with any form of racism. In fact, when he shouts at the Geo Woman, he doesn’t make any mention of her professed racism, which would seem to be the underlying source of his beef. He merely bemoans that she was “driving crazy in Seattle.” He merely shouts, “Karen, learn how to drive!”
As Dillard revisits the incident, the details of his story keep changing. He initially says that the woman “sticks her fingers out of the window and starts flipping me off and saying all of this fucking racial shit.” Dillard also claims that the woman followed him for three blocks. And yet he has no video to back up any of this.
In another bit of testimony from Instagram Stories, Dillard then says that the Geo Woman “purposely brake checked me” and then adds the new detail of the Geo Woman smiling — “the smile and the words that came out of her mouth and her flicking me off.” But the source video of the Geo doesn’t show the woman doing any of these things. Has Dillard conveniently omitted the details?
Dillard takes the opportunity to mock the Geo Woman for having a black husband, stating with hyperbole:
“I have a black husband” will forever be the defense of racist people….and clearly your husband can’t really be about the movement. Because he would have had a conversation with you. Like, if you really had a black husband, you would know what you did was inappropriate. You would also what you’re doing now is inappropriate. If you had a black husband, you would have been apologetic.
But wait a minute. Dillard claimed at the scene of the incident that the Geo Woman did apologize “for calling me a n*****,” even going to the trouble of shouting this at the top of his lungs to anyone who would listen. Moreover, what could the Geo Woman be doing “right now” given that Dillard is removed from her?
To add additional credibility and framing to his claim, Dillard also includes a video on his Instagram Stories feed having a conversation with his husband, completely discounting the road rage as the motivating factor behind the incident. Karlos’s husband Kristopher (who, it is worth noting, was attacked on a bus in 2016) claims that, if Dillard had hit the Geo Woman, then he would “owe her a new car.” And this leap in logic is used to further suggest that the Geo Woman acted with unmitigated racism. Dillard responds:
So issue isn’t the road rage. It’s the…the “Why it happened?” And that’s why I wanted — that’s really — I didn’t give a fuck about her calling me out on my name or flipping me off. I really got pissed off.
Despite remaining cool as a cucumber throughout all of his Instagram Stories, Dillard also paints himself as a suffering victim, suggesting that he will suffer from “hypertension, blood pressure, insomnia, back problems, [and] chiropractic problems.” It is worth pointing out that none of the many legitimate victims of Karens have ever felt compelled to list a series of physical ailments after being subjected to unacceptable racism.
Dillard, a Detroit native, has his own troubled past. He was abandoned at the age of fifteen and worked three jobs while homeless to survive through high school and college. [UPDATE: TrueAnonPod has uncovered a post by Dillard’s adopted mother that disputes his claims. It is worth noting that Karlos Dillard’s original name was Carlos Gum.]
Dillard had gained some Internet attention in the early days of the Seattle protest when he was videotaped blowing bubbles in front of the police. And this is indeed a pleasant and peaceful counterpoint to the relentless police abuse in that area.
But the lion’s share of his online activities appear to have involved harassing people and leveling spurious claims of racism.
I just had a racist Asian lady demand to see my ID and my phone to prove that I was a postmates driver while I was picking up the food. After I refuse to show her my ID. I told her she was being racist and she said whatever Nigger. #blm#postmates@Postmatespic.twitter.com/l2eJQx0u6t
The incident with the Geo isn’t the first time that Dillard has claimed that others were racist during the course of a Postmates delivery. On May 28, 2020, Dillard claimed that the proprietors of A Burger Place demanded to see his ID when picking up an order and that this was an act of racism. Much like the Geo incident, Dillard doesn’t have any video evidence of the alleged remarks that the “racist Asian lady” said to him. Much like the Geo incident, Dillard’s subjects are clearly uncomfortable with his accusations. Additionally — and this is another troubling aspect to Dillard’s approach — his confrontational antics appear to target women. In one of his Instagram stories, he calls the Geo Woman “that bitch.” If Dillard claims to be fighting systemic racism, then can he look inward and confront what appears to be a strain of systemic misogyny?
There’s also the question of whether Dillard’s political motivations are entirely sound. He voiced support for Trump as recently as last month. In a July 11, 2017 episode of The Black Guy Conservative Athesist, Dillard states, “I did vote for Donald Trump.” He later says of Trump: “He might help me with my business taxes. I might get a business loan, which I can’t seem to do.” In a followup interview in May, Dillard claimed that Trump “hasn’t done anything directly to black people, but his antics over the last three years have ignited so much ignorance.” He later said in the followup podcast, “I still think with my thing. I don’t think he has hurt small business and I don’t think he has directly affected black folks.”
In examining Dillard’s Instagram stories, there is an undeniably cruel, attention-seeking, and truth-bending thrust to his grievances — such as the way in which he spliced together the audio from a video depicting a legitimate act of racism from an unquestionable Karen onto his own video. Dillard also leaves in the “You’re an asshole” comment from the original Karen video to suggest that the Geo Woman said these remarks to him.
The epidemic of Karens is certainly one that needs to be exposed and addressed. Racism in any form absolutely needs to be called out and denounced — especially at this pivotal moment in American affairs when so many white people are having difficulty coming to terms with their privilege and truly must do so in order for this nation to come closer to racial equality. But when there is no video evidence of racism — as is the case with the Geo Woman — and the alleged victim — in this case, Karlos Dillard — appears more motivated by cruelty and vengeance and malice and ridicule, to say nothing of an overwhelmingly narcissistic need for attention, one does need to ask whether the cold and compassionless act of revealing the personal details and doxxing a terrified woman for a minor road rage offense is the act of a bona-fide Karen. One must also ask of Dillard why he felt the need to be so cruel and why he wished to gain fame and profit from the suffering of an innocent woman.
Moreover, Dillard’s wanton cruelty is a setback to the impressive progress of the courageous Black Lives Matter movement. When the evidential details are manufactured or outright erroneous, as they clearly are here with Dillard, then it dissuades someone who is on the fence about joining a vital and necessary struggle that will lead to a better tomorrow.
And then there’s the Geo Woman. At this point, the video has now spread so far and wide that it can no longer be pulled. What repercussions and trauma will she face? Are we to offer her no empathy because one opportunistic huckster says that it must be so?
6/23/2020 7:30 PM UPDATE: The TrueAnn Pod Twitter account has excavated a restraining order filed against Dillard for harassing a woman, further buttressing Dillard’s misogyny. Additionally, this Pastebin file links to numerous criminal charges, including driving without a license, numerous offers to commit prostitution, use of a weapon, and harassment.
6/23/2020 9:45 PM UPDATE: There’s another inconsistency to Dillard’s story. In the “brake incident” video posted above, Dillard is clearly blocks away from the Melrose Avenue area where he says that the Geo Woman cut him off. As I point out in the below tweet, there are a number of fishy details: (1) Why is the Geo Woman’s door open? (2) Why is there no mention of either flipping the bird or the smile or the racist language that was to come later in Dillard’s claims? (3) Is it possible that Dillard singled out the Geo Woman and pursued her?
One modest addition to the Karlos Dillard story. His first confrontation with her is on Summit Avenue (see screenshot). A Google Maps search (and StreetView glimpse) shows this is blocks away from Melrose Avenue (where the "cutoff" happened). Did he stalk her from this point? pic.twitter.com/BwO6XuYSLY
6/24/2020 3:15 PM UPDATE: Karlos Dillard has broken his silence and spoken with Insider‘s Rachel E. Greenspan. Dillard’s very own testimony, when corroborated against Google Maps, suggests that he completely invented the merging/cutoff incident. Because, as I documented in the two tweets below, much of the geography of that neighborhood doesn’t allow for two lane streets. We know from the brake chase video that he started pursuing the Geo Woman on Summit Street. He has claimed in another video that Melrose Avenue was where the two lanes merged into one. But I’ve run Google Street View along that sector and it’s one lane in both directions across every stretch of the way. Additionally, the only place he could have merged from when he alleges that he and the Geo Woman circled was along East Olive Street or East Pine Street. And I don’t see a place where there were two lanes. It now occurs to me that the fact that Dillard has been sketchy and nebulous about the location where the cutoff happened leads further credence that it was completely invented.
Karlos Dillard was interviewed by Insider His new deets don't add up. The video shows that they ended with him facing N (facing Howell) on Summit Avenue. He claims they circled after being in a two lane street. Area screenshots show only one lane each way.https://t.co/Wm8W7JPgO7pic.twitter.com/C02SlKf0OL
Karlos Dillard suggested that Melrose Ave was where the lane merging occurred. StreetView screenshots show it's all one lane in each direction. I've gone along the entire strip where he could have driven. Nothing. I'm beginning to wonder if there was ever even a cutoff incident. pic.twitter.com/ggrxvaqqTD
6/2/2020 1:00 PM UPDATE: I am very much indebted to two readers for pointing me to a number of new developments. First off, the original version of the article slightly mangled the precise transcript wording in the longer video. I have corrected it. Additionally, in an attempt to avoid scrutiny, Dillard has also removed the longer version of his video on Instagram from public view. But it is still accessible if you have the link — as it is through this article.
Second, a video that Dillard uploaded on June 15, 2020 has Dillard and his husband confessing to a con in which they harass people with false charges, suggesting further that Dillard have made it a habit to target people with charges of racism to get what they want. The pertinent conversation is at the 35:00 mark in the above video:
KARLOS: We wouldn’t go to another store. But this other store doesn’t have wood tip wine. And that’s what I smoke. And, and I don’t smoke plastic. I don’t smoke Jazz. I smoke wood tip wine. If it’s not wood tip wine, I’m very unhappy. So this place has both. So we went back and we also — okay, to be fair, we went back to start problems. But… KRISTOPHER: I went back to start a problem. I don’t give a fuck. I went back to get my… KARLOS: I went back to see if you’ve learned anything! KRISTOPHER: And… KARLOS: From our last encounter. KRISTOPHER: Let’s find out.
Then Kristopher plays a video of the two men in a store, suggesting that the owners were racist because a person had walked out with a six pack of beer and the store didn’t have beer and they felt entitled to it.
KRISTOPHER: You were lying. KARLOS: That was a true lie. KRISTOPHER: (laughs) That was a complete lie. We ain’t seen nobody. KARLOS: That was…when I tell you, when I tell you… KRISTOPHER: That was a lie. KARLOS: That was a lie I made up on the spot. Because when I…I was caused for this. So what you do is: It’s called Lay a Trap. You lay a trap of racism. KRISTOPHER: Right. KARLOS: Because really, really, if you really did do that, he would have been like, “I haven’t served anyone alcohol.” KRISTOPHER: Right. KARLOS: And then I would shut my mouth! KRISTOPHER: Uh huh. KARLOS: And went to another store. KRISTOPHER: But.. KARLOS: What did he say?
They then play an additional part of the clip in which the “lay a trap” game is played down. Karlos is then very enthusiastic about his lie.
KARLOS: I just made up an imaginary person who I…. [he falls on the couch, laughing] KRISTOPHER: An imaginary person who is white.
What we have with this video is Dillard completely incriminating himself and pointing to his systemic lies less than two weeks before the Geo Woman video. His “Lay a Trap” game, applied both to the woman at A Burger Place and to the Geo Woman, is a game that Dillard and his husband delight in playing.
I have downloaded a local copy of the video. Should Dillard make any efforts to remove this evidence, I will upload it and ensure that this is available for public scrutiny.
