Believe it or not, the most astonishing part of this haphazard and unsystematic world in which we live today, is how some people in it still find a way to surprise you every once in a while, no matter how absurd or grotesque it may seem.
Hey, what do you know? It’s the usual story, when a woman named Teresa Klein called the cops and claimed that she was sexually assaulted by 9-year-old Jeremiah while shopping with his mother in a New York deli last week.
Jason Littlejohn, who lives nearby the market, captured the scene on video and uploaded it to Facebook, quickly dubbing her “Cornerstore Caroline.”
“I was just sexually assaulted by a child,” Klein can be heard barking at the police on an urgent phone call.
After replaying the security tape footage, it became clear that Jeremiah had not at all groped the woman, as Klein so brashly claimed, but instead his backpack had brushed up against her as he walked down a narrow aisle in the deli.
As a result, Klein apologizes as best she can. “Young man, I don’t know your name, but I’m sorry.” Good work, Klein, your remorse and sympathy is very obvious.
Jeremiah is not so quick to get over the subject. “It’s still hard because lately on my mind, like, I can’t think nothing but this,” says Jeremiah, who teared up on the scene. However, Jeremiah a couple days later chose to accept Klein’s apology with love, saying, “friendship is the key.”
It would appear that the role of adult and child is reversed.
Jeremiah’s mother recalls Klein making the issue about race immediately. “She’s on the phone and she’s saying that I’m a white woman, that I’m standing in front of this deli . . . stating that this black mom and her two black kids are out here and that the son sexually assaulted me.”
Frankly, this doesn’t surprise anyone anymore, as racism still exists in this country, though not always as blatant or showy. It begs one to question whether a 9-year-old white boy in the same position would produce the same outcome. No, it probably wouldn’t.
But let’s pretend for a second that race had nothing to do with it. The other problem that should come to mind is how much of a crazy world we live in today where any person can get on the phone and claim an outright lie to the authorities or the media, and if there aren’t any security cameras present (luckily in this case, there were), then someone’s life can seriously be ruined.
In this day and age, an accidental brush in a New York deli aisle is a claim to fame for someone as deranged as Teresa Klein. And she, just like any of us, has the power to whip out a camera or a cell phone and create a story out of thin air.
As evident by Klein’s unnecessary reaction, contemporary civilization almost demands that we call out our problems instead of face them directly, entertaining the idea that we might indeed be turning soft.
Sexual assault is and should be treated as a major issue, but Klein was clearly prompted to take out her anger and stress from other outside issues on Jeremiah and his family, and that is not okay.
As an upstanding member of society, you cannot make claims like this that are not true. It is unacceptable to use someone else’s vulnerability or tarnish their name in order to gain status or respect, or even exercising outrage for the sake of outrage.
Klein posed as a victim but really played the bully all along.
Thankfully, there are people out there who still clearly see what is really going on and are willing to step in, if nothing more than for the defense of a child. We have yet to reach a point where we are all oblivious to obvious truths, but if this example isn’t proof enough, losing ourselves in that hole may not be that difficult.
Let’s never allow ourselves to reach the point that people like Klein have reached.
