Screenshot : Ja’Maya Burleson

One day, hopefully soon, my dream of colleges and universities across America instituting doctorate-level programs on the study of white people will become a reality. When that day comes, certain elements will be required in the course curriculum to achieve a Ph.D. in wypipology, including:

the autobiography of Rachel Dolezal



a laboratory with unseasoned-chicken taste tests

an audio recording of the Starbucks 911 call

today’s video of an Oklahoma woman who called the police on black poolgoers because they wouldn’t talk to her when she was depressed


This latest viral video in the ongoing series of white people calling the police on black people features a white woman who is either drunk, high, suffering a bout of mental illness or just white, making a 911 call while lounging poolside at an Oklahoma City apartment complex.

When the first video posted to Facebook begins, the woman is already on the phone with the authorities. When Poolside Patty hangs up, a woman identified as Ja’Maya Burleson asks the woman why she called the police.


“You know what?” the disgruntled white woman replies. “I nicely asked you if you would talk to me because I’m depressed.”



“I’m not a counselor. I’m not certified, baby,” the videographer responds, leaving Patty Police caller agape in horror, apparently unfamiliar with the word “No.”

In the clip, the bummed-out Becky initially denies having called the police, then insists that the 911 operator called her because ... of course they did. (I shouldn’t speculate. For all I know, there could be a secret network that gives periodic white people wellness checks.)


Soon the police arrive, and Patricia goes to explain herself to the law enforcement officer who is obviously taking time out of his busy black-people-shooting crime-fighting schedule to help with the terrible plague of despondent Mayo sapiens.


“Yesterday was my birthday; I was very depressed,” Patty explains to the officer. “I went over and I asked the other girl if I could talk to her, and she said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘What do you want to talk about?’ and I said, ‘I’m depressed.’”

And then, holding back tears, Pat the Crestfallen Pool Girl explains to the officer how much it hurt her to see the other black people laughing and taking pictures. Then she alleges that one of the black women threatened her (which the witnesses deny).


Sobbing, fully awash in white tears, Pat admits: “OK, I did say ‘I’ll beat your ass,’” but, she explains to the officer, “I didn’t mean it, of course.”

The officer interrupts the white woman and informs her that he has patrolled that apartment complex for three years and didn’t even know the pool existed until another man flagged him down and told him that “a short little blond lady” was at the pool causing a scene because she was “drunk or on something.” He asks the lone white woman why everyone else would gang up on her. Patty admits that she approached three different guys and asked them to talk before asking a “beautiful African-American woman with blond locs” to engage in a depression-fighting conversation.


When it’s her turn, the black woman tries to calmly explain the situation, but Patty interrupts with sobs, explaining how scared she was of the people who, she admits, did absolutely nothing to harm her (unless you count her frail, alabaster sense of entitlement). Finally, the cop realizes that Patty is actually “on something” and decides to leave.

The “something” that Patty was on is called “white privilege.”

White privilege shouldn’t be confused with racism. Even the display or misuse of privilege isn’t necessarily racist. This woman seriously believes that the universe has endowed her with the right to take any black person chilling at the local watering hole and turn them into her temporary Teddy Ruxpin. The ultimate privilege is the belief that the world owes you happiness and should bend itself backward to accommodate that idea.


This ends today’s class. However, before you leave, I’m giving a short, extra-credit pop quiz.

Rank these white women who called the police from worst to just a little bit shitty:


Now take those papers and rip them up.

Class dismissed.