Remember Jennifer Boyle? The weird racist lady who yelled at a manager at Michael'sand insisted that said manager was discriminating against her for being white and having voted for Trump? Who it later turned out had also gone on a weird homophobic rant in the middle of a Peet's Coffee shop? Well, NBC Chicago decided you probably wanted to hear from her, and, in an interview on Tuesday night, helped her "break her silence" on the incidents.
According to Boyle, who lacks any semblance of self-awareness, she was merely standing up for herself in the face of poor customer service, and does not have a racist or homophobic bone in her body. Which is true, as bones are not the part of your body that makes one racist or homophobic. That would be the brain! And Boyle certainly has a brain that is racist, homophobic, and deeply, deeply paranoid.
Since the incident, Boyle says she's been harassed online and in real life. Which, hey, is not a thing anyone should do, even if she is an obviously terrible person. We have to be better than that. We have to be better than her. Of course, who knows how much truth there is to her statements on this -- she claims that some graffiti on her sidewalk was officially labeled a "hate crime," which it would not be, by anyone, as being an asshole is not a protected class. She also appears to have lied about having been assaulted by the friend of a neighbor last week.
Boyle explains that the whole issue in Michael's was over the fact that she did not want to purchase a reuseable bag when her items could not fit in a paper bag, and claims that the employee checking her out muttered under her breath that she must be a Trump voter. Which all sounds very, very suspect and not at all like a thing that would have happened in real life. I've shopped at that particular Michael's for years, and everyone there is super nice and helpful and friendly. The fact that Boyle somehow seems to encounter terrible customer service everywhere she goes is probably more of a reflection on her than it is on those she screams at.
The "best" part of the interview, however, is the part where she is asked what she would say if she could talk to the people she verbally assailed at Michael's and Peet's, and begins it by saying that "We are all a work in progress." Is she referring to herself here? No, she is not! Because she follows it up by saying that she "forgives them" for what they said to her, and hopes that they learned their lesson about giving better customer service, and that it's important to treat all customers fairly no matter who they voted for or what color they are.
Is she sorry for anything she said? No, no she is not. Not sorry at all. She was just "standing up for herself."
She is far more appalled by the behavior of Jessie Grady, the woman who posted her rant online, and also by the fact that so many people donated money to help out the Michael's manager that Boyle screamed at.
She does not believe that she caused any type of disruption, or that she did anything wrong, or that she has any anger issues whatsoever. The fact that these things just keep happening to her is mere coincidence, and she cannot help the fact that she was "targeted" for her race. You know, because no one in Lakeview has ever seen a white person before (for non-Chicagoans: there are, in fact, a lot of white people in Lakeview).
The closest she came to any self-reflection was saying "I wish I would have just been above, cooler heads prevail, been above reproach and would have just left and called corporate like I did do on Friday."
And what did we learn from this interview? Basically that some people are just assholes. Jennifer Boyle is one of those people. We also learned the important lesson that the saying "the customer is always right" is not actually the license to be a tyrant that people like Boyle seem to think it is, and that if you get your kicks by being terrible to people in the service industry, it may turn out poorly for you in the end.
[ NBC Chicago ]
Racist Michael's Lady 'Breaks Her Silence,' As If Anyone Wanted Her To
You are absolutely right! I'm just saying as a brown person: #not all white peoples (if I understand this hashtag thing correctly) and that she need not be lumped with the poverty-stricken-undereducated-melanin-deficients-with-less-than-optimal-dental-care (or at least she gives them a bad name.)
I have certainly been the recipient of white rage (fortunately without high powered rifles) and lectures on "if I want to live in this country..." even though I am Merkin born and have no where else to call home.
Huh. I don't get how a transvestite can be such a bigot.