Woman who blocked black man from entering his own apartment defends her actions

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

A Missouri woman is defending her actions after getting fired from her job over the weekend over a viral video surfaced showing her trying to stop a black man from entering his own apartment building.

In an interview with a local Fox News affiliate released on Tuesday, Hilary Mueller, born Hilary Thornton, said she doesn’t think she did “anything wrong” in a video that shows her stopping a black man, D’Arreion Toles, from entering his apartment building last Friday.

In the video recorded on Toles’ phone, Mueller can be seen standing in the doorway of the apartment complex as the man tries to enter the building. She repeatedly asks Toles what unit he lives in as Toles asks her to move out of his way.

"To Be A Black man in America, & Come home," Toles wrote in a Facebook post that also included a video of the encounter.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/411965-woman-who-blocked-black-man-from-entering-his-own-apartment

Being a racist tends to give you that attitude.

[Cha]

1. Bet she's a trump sycophant.

[Solly Mack]

2. Snort. Poor dear.

[snowybirdie]

3. She said

her husband is Black!

[3Hotdogs]

8. I bet some of her best friends are black, too.

[yardwork]

16. Her estranged husband. He reached out to the man she harassed.

[slumcamper]

4. She'd be wise to STFU.

[Gothmog]

5. This lady is a racist idiot

[Hermit-The-Prog]

10. now, now

Just because we have not seen video proof that she stops everyone entering the building and interrogates them, regardless of race or culture, doesn't mean she doesn't do so.

She could be a superhero, preventing angry leftist mobs, radical Muslims, Mexican rapists, and rampaging poodles from terrorizing the condo! Look at her name!

Ok. Your assessment is much more plausible, but she *might* be a superhero, given enough Fox time.

[slumcamper]

6. She needs to shut up and go away.

[dhill926]

7. Fuck her...

that is all.

[ProudLib72]

9. Well bless her heart

She tried to be best.

[Ms. Toad]

11. The problem is not that she refused to let him in -

But the manner in which she did it.

She should have had politely closed the door (asking him to step back, if need be), so that he could let himself in. That is the proper procedure when buildings are limted access. Anyone who lives there will be able to use the fob; anyone who is visiting there will be able to call the tenant they are visiting.

I'm currently in a semi-lockdown situation where I work for security reasons. We are each required to swipe in separately - even if we know the person trying to tailgate in. Initially, only a handful of us knew the source of the threat - and the goal of the non-identifying reminder to swipe in separately was to keep a person out who, until a day before the lockdown, had the equivalent of a fob. For legal reasons, we could not initially disclose his name - so keeping him out (and our safety) depended on the willingness of everyone to be "rude," to others by requiring them to gain access using their own access device.

What would have been going through my mind, had I been leaving the building and a black person wanted to enter without swiping in - I know I should close the door and make him let himself in. But because he is black, if I close the door he will think I didn't let him in because he is black and I don't want anyone to believe I think that he is likely to be violent, that can't possibly belong in the workplace, etc. because he is black. Had he been white, that conversation would not have been going on in my head, and I would have closed the door and made him gain access by his of his own accord

Now I have the added concern that makes it even harder for me to make smart safety choices - I can easily envision the incident being videotaped and being virally shamed for acting toward a black man for reasons of safety the same way I would act toward a white one. That's a problem - because I now have both my liberal bias - which makes me question my decision to shut the door on him (despite the fact that I would with a white male) - and the fear of shaming - that make it harder for me to act in a way that is more likely to keep me safe. And the potential consequences of the viral shaming can be huge - look at what happened here (job loss & death threats)

Just to be crystal clear - this is not a hypothetical situation for me. My reluctance to appear racist contributed to being raped 4 decades ago. The person who raped me targed young white hippie-types (by appearance) because he knew our fear of being perceived as racist would make us reluctant to reject overtures from black men, even ones we don't know. He was right - about me, and a dozen other similarly situated women the police told me about when they arrested him.

Safety is a real issue for women (regardless of race) - and fear of being perceived as rude (or racist) impairs our ablity to make safe choices. That said, the manner in which Mueller tried to protect herself was completely inappropriate. She repeatedly questioned his right to be there, and even after he said he lived there she continued to treat him as if he was a visitor or a liar. There is no need for her to imply he can't possibly live there - she merely needed to close the door and require him to let himself in. It's not an accusation that you don't live there - it's merely good safety practices. And - any person should respect that, especially any male, in an age when 100% of all women (or so close it doesnt' matter) are sexually harassed - and around 1 in 4 are raped).

I've written this post at least a dozen times, and have trashed it each time because - why bother subjecting myself to the responses, when I can see the overwhelming condemnation in every single post on this video. No one has even mentioned (that I've seen) that she appeared to believe he wanted to walk through on her access - which is an inappropriate expectation regardless of race.

But I somehow still have hope that it might be possible to have conversations about tough subjects that are more nuanced, and acknowledge that sometimes things aren't exactly as they appear.

[uponit7771]

14. She called the police after he entered his apartment IINM then never apologized to him about the

... acute suspicion even if he acted like a jerk coming into the building.

She had reason to believe he stayed there then acted indigent is what this sounds like

[Ms. Toad]

23. I wouldn't even say he acted like a jerk -

Tailgating is such a common activity - and it feels rude to shut the door in someone else's face so mostly we don't. I am just acutely aware recently, out of real fears for my own safety, that we really ought to each fob in separately - regardless of race, and regardless of whether we know the person. (In our current situation, access was shut off to someone known to everyone with legitimate access to the building. It was shut off by police order based on credible threats he made - but we were initially not legally permitted to disclose his identity, so our safety depended on everyone shutting the door, even in the face of people who had - a day earlier - been permitted to access the building.

I watched this video a number of times to see if I could figure out what triggered the incident, and it seemed to be that he was trying to enter while she had the door open in connection with taking her dog in or out. I lost interest in sorting it out after she started acting like a jerk - so I don't remember if I sorted out whether she actually called the police, or just threatened to.

The reason I've been writing, deleting, rewriting the post I made is the complete lack of recognition by everyone discussing the incident that initially she seems to have had a legitimate reason to not just let him in (i.e. she didn't see him use his fob to open the door - it isn't clear whether he did and she didn'see it, or just expected to be able to enter through the door she opened. The possibility of women being coerced (out of fear of viral shaming) into making decisions that make us less safe troubles me.

[Dorian Gray]

15. I very much understand

the problem with letting people into buildings, as a relative of mine was robbed bc someone else buzzed someone into a building. That is a real safety issue, and it happens all the time here in NYC.

Having said that, she could have pleasantly asked him to swipe himself in (and repeated it). But she ended up following him, getting into an elevator with him, and calling the police on him AFTER he let himself into his own apartment. Would she have done all that to a white tenant whom was a stranger to her? We can't know the answer, but it was wholly inappropriate and over the top.

[Ms. Toad]

25. Absolutely -

The way she dealt with it was entirely inappropriate.

Most of the reactions have been along the lines of, "how dare she assume that because he is a black man that he doesn't belong there." I have not seen a single reaction (other than mine) that distinguishes between refusing to let him come in through her open door - and the highly inappropriate manner in which she carried it out.

The former reaction makes it harder for women to make appropriate safety choices - because it ignores the reality that requiring him to independently gain access is a safety issue, not a race issue.

[yardwork]

17. She rode the elevator alone with him. Why?

If she was afraid of him, why did she accompany him to his apartment? Why not just call security from the lobby?

[Ms. Toad]

18. Don't know.

That wasn't part of what I was addressing (i.e. that was part of the manner in which she tried to keep him out, which I said in the first line or two of the post was the problem).

(FWIW - I also didn't say she was afraid of him. I said her inclination to make him enter of his own accord was correct. Safety decisions do not have to be motivated by fear.)

My concern is that the threat of viral shaming complicates my own decision making process, and that - as a result - I am more likely to make decisions that place me at risk because of it. No one, in any of the threads I've read, has suggested that it was appropriate for her to require him to use his own access device to enter - even though (regardless of his race) is exactly what should have happened.

[yardwork]

21. Speaking for myself, I'm reacting to the entirety of her behavior.

If she had asked him to fob himself in, I doubt we'd know about this.

Her behavior went well beyond that, including actions that suggest that safety was not her foremost concern.

[Ms. Toad]

24. In the heightened sensitivity around race, I suspect we would have.

And that is the reason I kept writing and deleting my post.

1. Actions taken for legitimate safety reasons can easily be seen as racially motivated when the person impacted is black. For example, I hear frequently about blacks hearing car doors lock - and the perception that the doors are being locked because they are in a black neighborhood or the driver saw a black person, the viral blog post about the rapper in the elevator who was certain the woman who refused to disclose her floor did so because he was black, etc. I'm not suggesting that these things don't happen frequently because of race. They do. But they also happen for safety reasons. If I see a male approaching my car - regardless of race - my reaction is to lock my doors. To the black man approaching, I'm sure he would perceive it as a reaction to his race when, for me, it is a reaction to his gender. If I am in the elevator with a male who wants to know where I'm going, I might refuse to identify the floor - and if I did so, it would be because the other person was male, not becuase they were black.

2. Personally, my safety, in the past, has relied on being able to occasionally act in ways that appear rude - and I have been hurt when I bent over backwards to avoid appear rude because the person I was interacting with was black.

3. The line between making decisions for safety reasons and making them based on race is not a bright line - but in this day of viral videos the reaction to someone in the gray area is bright line, and can destroy lives. Starbucks, the barbecuing in the park, etc. are different - they don't have anything to do with personal safety. This one does.

[Iggo]

20. That's the initial problem, yes.

Then there's oh so much more.

[Ms. Toad]

26. She's out on a limb when she starts suggesting

he has to demonstrate proof to her that has a right to be there. He doesn't owe her any explanation. But he doesn't have the right to go in through the door she opened - all that should have happened is that she shuts the door and he opens it back up with his fob. If he can gain access, the rest is none of her business.

[Iggo]

28. She fucked up, then she made a bad call, then she made a mistake, then she fucked up again...

...until eventually, people with guns are confronting an innocent black man.

Fuck. Her.

[Ms. Toad]

31. Or a woman is raped because she was so concerned

about viral video shaming that she sacrifices her own safety to avoid the consequences of her safety-conscious choices being portrayed as racist and going viral.

[Iggo]

32. One of those things happened.

[smirkymonkey]

12. So glad she got fired.

Serves her right.

[uponit7771]

13. So after she SEES HIM let himself into his own apartment she 1. Doesn't apologize, 2.Calls police?!

Does she have ANY friends to tell her how screwed up she sounds?!

[struggle4progress]

19. War

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior
is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned everywhere is war ...

Until there no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation
until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes
me say war ...

Until that day the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality
will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued but never attained ...

[KWR65]

22. I've lived in condos & apartments most of my life.

I've never known a person to block other people from entering their own apartment. She only did this because the man was black and she thought he didn't belong.

[Ms. Toad]

30. But people actualy need ot do this (shut the door and make them open it themselves)

What if there was a DV protection order, and the guy's fob was deactivated by court order to protect someone who lived there?

Although my current situation is work-related, I am in nearly that sitation. The access card to someone who recently made credible threats was turned off by order of the police for the safety of everyone else in the building. We were not legally permitted (at least initially) to disclose who the threat was - so our safety (i.e. keeping him out of the building) depended on everyone complying with the rule that every single person, every time, had to swipe themself in.

So whehter the people you have observed do or not, we all should. And no one should be shamed for merely taking such a simple precaution. Close the doors and make others use their keys to gain access regardless of race. It's a matter of safety - even if when I close the door in the face of a black man you judge it to be racist because your perception is that no one ever does so to anyone.

That said, she went well beyond simply making him swipe himself in - but your response (typical of most I've seen) is exactly why I finally decided to post. In addressing racist incidents by viral video shaming (and the aftermath that has tremendous personal consequences for the person shamed), we must leave room for women (especially) to make appropriate safety choices. 100% of blacks experience racism - there's a lot of it. 100% of women experience sexual harassment - and 1/4 are raped. Addressing racism should not come at the expense of requiring women to make less safe choices in order to avoid appearing to be racist.

[sfwriter]

27. From Missouri...

I have never been as happy as when I left that state.

[ret5hd]

29. Hey! Did you hear Missouri changed their state motto?

"6 Million People, 6 Last Names"

(One of those stupid jokes to bug your Missourian co-workers with)