Angry woman attempted to block a black postmates worker from making a delivery

Jordan Mykel Gipson was trying to deliver a Postmates order inside an apartment building when a white woman blocked him from getting inside. The incident took place in California and is just one of a spate of racially motivated incidents of discrimination in the last few months.  

Jordan tells Daily Dot that he was trying to deliver food in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles when this woman stopped him. He started recording because he was afraid she would call the police on him. He then posted those videos to Instagram.  

In the first very short video, she questions why he's wearing a mask, as if we haven't all been inundated with mask directives for months. Then, she asks him why his Dodgers hat is black. She pressures him to take off his mask and asks, "Is this a hold up or something?" 

In the second video, which is much longer, the woman physically blocks Jordan from entering the apartment complex even though he had buzzed the apartment to which he was supposed to deliver the food. He tries to explain what's happening to his customer, and the woman harasses him the entire time.  

"I'm glad I was here," she says, as Jordan makes it clear that she's not letting him in to make his delivery. He keeps trying to tell her he has food to deliver to someone who lives here. 

"No, don't deliver anything here. We don't want you delivering here," she says, while blocking the door. "I don't want you, I don't want you here. I don't want you here at all." 

At this point, Jordan tries to explain to the customer on the intercom what's going on. The woman jumps in and tries to question the resident about their delivery. The woman claims she lives there and makes the person on the intercom identify themselves.  

He explains that he lives in apartment 212 and that he getting a Postmates delivery. "A Postmate delivery in 212? 212 where?" the woman asks. Then she suggests that she won't let Jordan in but she would bring the food to the resident.  

She claims again that she lives in the building and that somehow, the person Jordan buzzed in apartment 212, does not live there. Eventually, Jordan, defeated, says, "I'm a Black man. I'm trying to deliver... I just want to deliver the food. There are other orders I have to deliver." 

The woman claims that Jordan came there with no car or bike. When he tries to point out the white car he drove up in, she wouldn't accept it. "He's a Black guy walking around with a clicker to get into any building he wants to." The customer eventually agrees to come down and retrieve the food himself. 

She starts taunting him and, strangely, telling him that they took her name off of the directory to the apartment. "So you don't even live here," Jordan says. "I live here, a--hole," she responds, before making faces into his camera and seemingly trying and failing to get in the building.  

She then chastises him for being a young person who uses their phone all the time, though he clarifies that he's filming in case she calls the police. That's when the customer finally arrives and opens the door. Jordan hands off the food and quickly walks away as the woman can be heard asking the customer, "Now why haven't I met you?" 

"I'm tired of working three jobs and having to deal with this s--t," Jordan said. "A lot of what went down in the last couple of days, it reflects what most people with this kind of job — mainly people of color — have to deal with, have to suck it up." Jordan's girlfriend has set up a GoFundMe. Jordan's been working three to four jobs at a time and they're hoping to get some help with money for rent, food, and bills.