I had a cousin Karen in one of my families who people would all agree is such a lovely person – and I’m pretty certain she would never act out so rudely in public – but you’d better believe she agrees with the sentiments completely in private.
So, even the ‘nice’ Karens don’t get an automatic pass from me.
Why “Karen” specifically though?
If we’re just looking for old-people names that have disappeared among young adults, “Susan” and “Linda” have plummeted even farther down the list
Why ‘Felicia?’ Why ‘Dick?’
And “what’s in a name?”
Getting back on topic:
Seems like many POC have decided to go work out at that park in defiance of the perp’s bigotry.
It irks me that this hateful cow has been doing this shit to folks for years and multiple police reports have been filed, but nothing was done.
That’s White Privilege combined with racism, regardless to the Latino surname the culprit has.
karen has been in common use by POC for years in such cases, I’m told.
I’ve seen many similar stories in which the nasty individuals were referred to as susan and becky.
The confusion caused by your use of the name Karen here gets to my point exactly—who are you presuming we are wringing hands for? There is no question when we just call these people racist arseholes. There is no handwringing for them. Perhaps you’d like to donate your first name to the cause and let us all use it in place of “racist arsehole”?
Using names in this way is lazy, especially in journalistic situations.
Your reply is literally going to be whataboutism?
Okay…
BTW, I think most people parsed it just fine.
People other than the actual victims of each bigoted aggression that’s being constantly documented nowadays?
Complaining about whatever nickname that happens to be allotted to the antisocial bigots attempting to weaponize their White privilege is intentionally missing the point, it’s a derailment from the actual problem at hand.
Also, once again this is a BLOG, not a news outlet; none of the authors here are expected to be upheld to “journalistic standards”…
And not wearing a mask. Narcissist?
You do not seem to understand that “Karen” in this context is an entire, well-known character, someone immediately recognizable.
If I were to say someone was a ‘Romeo’, you would know what character I meant, even if you happened to know someone in your private life with the name Romeo. If I were to say Gatsby, or Scarlett, or Sherlock, you would understand the reference. This Karen character has been described and named by black women rather then white men, but it’s the same thing.
An addendum: knowing the multiple people who shared my name growing up (including several classmates and myself for a lot of my life, if I am honest), I swear the only reson it’s not one of these names is because no one can settle on a spelling.
And there is more from the same woman:
For some people that’s all they’ve got.
You can fail at everything else but at least you ain’t one o’ them…
My name is Becky, and while I applaud calling out racist assholes, I dislike its use online as an insult. Romeo, Scarlett and Sherlock all are referring to fictional characters.
Becky Thatcher, is that you?
While I do not know any Sherlocks, I assure you Romeo and Scarlett are very much names of real people. And before you respond that those are not the people being referenced, consider what that implies.
Anyone here completely gobsmacked at her age? She looks well into her 70s or maybe even 80s to me. I’d say that’s a hard 56, but she’s even dressing like an old lady.
You know me, and you know I’m older than she is. So yeah, she definitely looks ‘old’ to me, when in fact she’s younger.
