Shop
 Explore 

A black delivery man was held against his will inside a gated community just for doing his job

A black delivery man was held against his will inside a gated community just for doing his job

The advent of the smartphone has given everyone the ability to document acts of discrimination. Now, it seems like there's a new story every week of a black person being harassed by white people for simply going about their day.

In the recent case of Ahmaud Arbery, simply jogging through the wrong neighborhood led to his death.

Travis Miller, 43, a black man who delivers furniture and appliances was held against his will in a private housing development in Oklahoma Metro City, Oklahoma on Monday, May 11. After the delivery, Miller and a co-worker, attempted to exit development when they were stopped by a white man who identified himself as David Stewart, a board member of the Home Owners Association.

Stewart parked his white Subaru in front of Miller's truck so he couldn't leave. So Miller documented the interaction from the seat of his truck.

Black Truck Driver held up and blocked in by White Homeowner Association President in Oklahomawww.youtube.com

"I'm trying to leave, and I got Super Neighbor over here blocking me in, so I'm going live," Mr. Miller said at the beginning of the video. "This is what I'm dealing with right now."

"Got me blocked in so I can't leave," Miller continued. "I want to know where you're going?" Stewart replied.

"It's none of your business, Miller said. "I'm going out. That's where I'm going."

Miller told Stewart a resident gave him the gate code so he clearly had reason to be in the complex. Without a code, he never could have entered.

About 15 minutes into the standoff, Stewart returned with another white man who continued to pepper Miller with questions. Both Miller and Stewart reported the incident to the police and sat in a standoff while awaiting their arrival.

Eventually, the customer Miller delivered the package to spoke with Stewart, and he called the police and told them the situation had been resolved. But Miller was still hesitant to leave the complex.

"He said that he called the cops back and let them know that everything was clear but I didn't want to leave and have it seem like I was fleeing the scene or anything like that," Miller said to dispatch.

via YouTube

Miller posted the video to Facebook where it has been viewed over 600,000 times. Many of the commentators believe that the residents' actions were racially motivated.

"I think things would have gone differently if I was white," Miller said according to the New York Times. "His issue was with the people inside the truck."

Miller's wife agrees. "What my husband went through Monday was some scary, unnecessary, blatant racism, but the outpouring of love and support has been overwhelming," LaShawn Miller, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. Miller also filed a police report on Saturday, according to Capt. Larry Withrow, a spokesman for the Oklahoma City Police Department.

The video is another example of black people being harassed while simply going about their daily lives. It's also a tribute to Miller who stays relatively calm during the entire interaction. A major reason is probably because as a black man right now—any threat of physical intimidation or outrage—could immediately have jeopardized his very existence, to say nothing of his personal liberties.

"I knew if I get out this truck, no matter what happened, I would have been in the wrong," he said. "I always say to myself, 'I'm going to go home to my wife and my kids.'"

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul|YouTube

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

Keep ReadingShow less

switched at dog daycare

Woman 'kidnaps' her baby to teach lazy husband a scary lesson

Did she go too far?

via Kroshka_Nastya/Freepik

A guy passes out on his bed eating pizza.

A 29-year-old woman had a baby girl, and after a brief maternity leave, she had to return to work. She couldn't afford childcare, so her husband, 35, reluctantly agreed to watch the baby while she was at work.

“It’s important to know that he’s been unemployed since 2021,” the woman wrote on Reddit’s AITA subforum. “He receives benefits. It’s also important to know that he’s extremely lazy. He doesn’t cook, clean, or help out in any way. I was nervous about leaving her home with her father, but I had no choice.”

The mother had reason to be worried about leaving her baby home alone with her husband, but in the beginning, things seemed fine. “When I came back from work, she was clean and sleeping. The next few times I came home, he was either playing with her, feeding her, or out for a walk with her. I was happy,” she wrote.

Keep ReadingShow less

Mom has the perfect response to teen son who refuses to do 'girl' chores

What exactly are "girl" chores, anyway?

via Krampus Production/Pexels

A boy doing the dishes.

A 41-year-old mom with 3 boys, 12-year-old twins, and a 10-year-old, pays them $10 daily to do their chores. However, their pay is deducted $10 if they miss a day. The boys have to do their tasks 5 days a week, although it doesn’t matter which days they choose to work.

“This system has worked swimmingly for us since it started, the boys have always complied with completing their chores,” the mom wrote on Reddit.

Her 12-year-old son was getting ready to play Fortnite with a friend and told him he’d be ready in 15 minutes once he finished his chores. When the boys started playing the game, he told the friend he was in charge of dusting and sweeping the stairs, to which the friend responded, “It’s a good thing my parents don’t make me do girl chores.”

After learning what the friend said, the mom told her son that chores are genderless.

Keep ReadingShow less

Women do better when they have a group of strong female friends, study finds

We're stronger together.

Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Women do better when they have female friends.

Madeleine Albright once said, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." It turns out that might actually be a hell on Earth, because women just do better when they have other women to rely on, and there's research that backs it up.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that women who have a strong circle of friends are more likely to get executive positions with higher pay. "Women who were in the top quartile of centrality and had a female-dominated inner circle of 1-3 women landed leadership positions that were 2.5 times higher in authority and pay than those of their female peers lacking this combination," Brian Uzzi writes in the Harvard Business Review.

Part of the reason why women with strong women backing them up are more successful is because they can turn to their tribe for advice. Women have to face different challenges than men, such as unconscious bias, and being able to turn to other women who have had similar experiences can help you navigate a difficult situation. It's like having a road map for your goals.

Keep ReadingShow less

Voice recordings of people who were enslaved offer incredible first-person accounts of U.S. history

"The results of these digitally enhanced recordings are arresting, almost unbelievable. The idea of hearing the voices of actual slaves from the plantations of the Old South is as powerful—as startling, really—as if you could hear Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee speak." - Ted Koppel

Library of Congress

When we think about the era of American slavery, many of us tend to think of it as the far distant past. While slavery doesn't exist as a formal institution today, there are people living who knew formerly enslaved black Americans first-hand. In the wide arc of history, the legal enslavement of people on U.S. soil is a recent occurrence—so recent, in fact, that we have voice recordings of interviews with people who lived it.

Keep ReadingShow less