youtube.com/watch?v=mUIPpKhJiJE&feature=emb_logo

Your whole argument was super cute…until you watch the video and saw the sign that said dog ARE allowed but must be leashed, which you acknowledge. This means they were NOT doing anything legal and she was out of line and should’ve just said it and kept it moving. Instead, she latched on to them because they were Asian American. I am positive there were a number of dogs on that trail and if that Karen stopped each and every dog owner she encountered, cool. But she didn’t. You know it. I know it. The dogs know it. Stop gaslighting.

The whole conversation was pretty civil until after multiple repeats that dogs aren’t allowed on the trail, Hiroshi tells them to continue on the trail with their dog and Beth makes a comment where I believe that she she incorrectly assumed that they were immigrants or tourists. “You can’t be in this country and be doing that” and in reference to them breaking park rules by bringing a dog on a trail and this is where the family becomes extremely defensive and latches on to the 10% of the the conversation which is what we see in the ABC video. The family repeats what she said loudly “We can’t be in this country?” and Beth tries to emphasize and adds multiple times “and be breaking laws” after the family continuously repeats that snippet. Unfortunately due to that one part of the conversation the whole thing is manipulated to be a racial issue by Hiroshi and disregards that the initial conversation was because the family was being called out for bringing a dog on the trail.In Hiroshi’s interview, he misremembers the events and says that Beth told him to “go back to his country” which was never said by Beth.

In ABC’s interview, they share the text reply from Beth that the video did not depict the entire situation and if we dig into her part of the story where her primary concern was that they were hiking Steep Ravine and dogs are not allowed on the trail. If we consider her part of it and do research, dogs are not allowed on unpaved trails in Mt. Tam state park. In the end of his personal video of the encounter, there is a still picture of the park sign allowing dogs on leashes which either means that the rules have changed or it was a different trail.

parks.ca.gov/?page_id=471

Folks will latch on to Beth’s comment of “you can’t be in this country and be doing that” as an unforgivable slip of her racism however I see it as just an assumption that Hiroshi and his family are immigrants. It is prejudiced, for sure, but not unforgivable. Let’s not forget that California has more immigrants than any other state. It is human to make assumptions and the brain naturally organizes the world based on previous information without previous experience, which is the very definition of prejudice.

At the end of it, I feel that this was a misunderstanding and not malicious on Beth’s behalf. Unfortunately due to a combination actual racism Asians are experiencing during Covid-19 in the US, poor news reporting, and people’s addiction to being outraged and cancel culture, this misunderstanding was blown out of proportion.