TikTok star Oliver James was allegedly racially profiled while reading and working out on the beach at The Breakers Palm Beach Resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Oliver James is a self-taught reader as an adult, and gained online fame for his literacy journey. James has over 270,000 online followers and was invited to speak and read to children at the Barbara Bush Foundation’s Literacy Day event. The Foundation arranged accommodations for him at The Breakers Palm Beach Resort.
On Monday morning, November 20, 2023, while doing his routine of reading live on TikTok on the hotel grounds, James was approached by hotel security who questioned him about a disturbance at the pool area.
According to World Population Review the town of Palm Beach is reported to be 92.92% non-Hispanic white, and 0.2% black.
“They asked me if I was by the pool area, and I was like, why are you asking me? That’s what I told them. And they were like, we got a disturbance from the pool area, saying that you were making a disturbance at the pool,” James shared live in a TikTok video.
James denied having any involvement with any disturbances by the pool. However, because he did not answer questions about being a guest or not, and because he didn’t show them ID, staff called the Palm Beach Police, who escorted James to his room to pack his belongings.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it. 100%. Why would you walk directly up to me? There’s a thousand people in this whole entire place,” said James.
As expected, The Breakers Resort denied any discrimination. They claim they asked him to leave after his refusal to comply with questions or provide identification.
The Real Problem the Media Won’t Report
Most mainstream periodicals will never tell the truth about what likely happened. Many racists in our society are deranged and obsessed with black people. And at the mere sight of a black person, some spring into action to have them harassed by law enforcement whether they had done anything or not. We keep seeing evidence of a noticed, but not dealt with epidemic of people calling the authorities on black people for doing basic things “while black”. And instead of launching proper investigations, and then properly punishing false reporting if the claims are unfounded, we see something else. To the contrary many times we see authorities and employees giving too much deference and validation to the word of anonymous Karen’s and racists without proof of their claims. Consequently, some unlucky black patrons are expected to make unexpected visits from law enforcement checking them out a part of their day-to-day outings. Many of us know that this is happening and it needs to stop.
He was reading to his online community that he was inspiring with his daily posts. However, not knowing who he was or what he was doing, another nosy patron most likely focused in on him and told hotel staff that he was creating a “disturbance”. And without seeing it themselves, the staff evidently took the person’s claims as gospel. This happens all the time across the country, and this is where things went south.
James, knowing he hadn’t done anything wrong refused to comply because he felt he was targeted, and that would be a fair assessment. There were hundreds of other, mostly white, people on the beach, and they only approached him. And because he didn’t comply submissively to the staff’s line of questioning, the police were called on him and he was eventually walked to his hotel room to pack so he could be escorted off the premises.
The word of anonymous people making claims should not result in ejecting people from accommodations they, or entities they are working for or with paid for. Especially if they were not caught in the act of doing anything inappropriate.
Our nations’ political conglomerates are very quick to fan the flames on anti-Asian discrimination, homophobia, or antisemitism, and quickly put policies in place to watchdog these issues. Ironically, however, all the FBI data statistics show us that the black community deals with normalized discrimination the most. And this is why nothing ever changes.
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