A Viral TikTok Video Shows a Woman Falsely Accusing a Black Comedian of Breaking Into Cars at Their Nashville Apartment Complex

Well, this isn’t funny: Nashville-based comedian Joshua Black said a woman falsely accused him of breaking into cars at the apartment complex they both live at. She said he fit the description of the suspect. It turns out that he didn’t.

Newsweek reports that Black, who is a Black man, recorded a portion of his Wednesday exchange with the woman and posted it on TikTok. He said that he didn’t know the woman before the incident and hasn’t heard from her since.

Black’s video of his back-and-forth with the woman, who he refers to as “Karen” multiple times, has been viewed on TikTok over 16 million times.

Per Newsweek:

“First off, we have break-ins here in cars,” said the unidentified woman, who was standing with another man.

Black responded and said that his own car was broken into before saying that he lived in the apartment building for five years. He said that the woman had approached him and accused him of “following her.”

The woman claimed her car was broken into, then insisted that Black fit the description of the individual who was breaking into other cars at the complex because he was wearing a hoodie and a backpack.

Black told Newsweek that before he started recording, Karen knocked on his car window and asked him if he lived in the building. He said she then began to angrily ask him questions and took photos of his car.

More from Newsweek:

“In her brain, she didn’t need to owe me an explanation, but I had to owe her an explanation,” Black said, after saying that she was agitated when he asked her if she lived in the building as well.

He pulled out his phone and thought the woman may start to calm down because she was being recorded, but she continued to question him and continued to take photos of his car when he walked away.

Black almost didn’t post the video, he said, adding that these types of incidents are common in Tennessee and across the country.

“It happens almost every day to every Black person,” he said. “This incident happened to be caught on camera. This is no different from a regular Tuesday. Subtle racism happens every day, but you can’t record it all.”

According to News 4 Nashville, the apartment complex said the person suspected of the break-ins was actually described as a “white kid on a bike with a red backpack.” Unlike what Karen said, there was no mention of the suspect wearing a hoodie.

The TV station spoke to Karen, who gave her own account of what happened:

“When I asked him, ‘Hey, do you live here?’ that smile quickly faded,” the woman said. “He started screaming at me and was like, ‘Who are you Karen?’”

The woman said she was on edge after she said Black tailgated her car to get inside, but her question “Do you live here?” didn’t sit well with Black.

She went on to tell News 4 Nashville that Black “got a little too defensive about it, and I admit, obviously, in that video I did too.”

Honestly, can you really blame him for being defensive about this? Ain’t nobody got time for loud, wrong people continually being loud and wrong.