Tell it to me, then. Dare ya.
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The original Karens…
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It’s a meme - its definition is in constant flux. If you don’t mean it that way, then that’s not it’s definition. It’s like all the people who come out of the woodwork to “workshop” a better term for defunding the police, but can’t be bothered to google the existing definition according to the people who originated it.
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I think we’re talking about different things. I wasn’t very clear about this, and I will try to be more clear in the future. I’m talking more about these unwanted, unthreatening characteristics being associated with a womanly figure. There’s an element of intersectionality, here, and you hit that nail on the head. I am not interested in obfuscating white, female, middle-class racism. I’m more interested in noting how people who know of or freely use the word “Karen” need to be told what a “Ken” is.
I’m the kind of person who would call a man acting the same way ‘a Karen’ in a heartbeat, regardless of gender.
At the same time, I am fully aware that not everyone else can easily wrap their heads around the concept of fluidity, and it’s more comfortable for them to have a gender specific term to use, based upon how the person in question is ‘presenting.’
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But, again, when people use “Karen” they are talking about behavior of specific women who are doing material harm. If some fucked up corner of the misogynistic internet is using it as a catchall for middle aged women as a targeted attack, I suspect that they were doing that anyway well before “Karen” became a way of describing white women weaponizing their gender and race to hurt others. They will do it anyway once it’s fall out of fashion.
And AGAIN as an ACTUAL middle aged white women, I really object to people who treat me like shit being employed to devalue the power of calling out racism. That’s not intersectionality, that’s ignoring reality.
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I just get frustrated when I keep getting told what I should be mad about in the world as a white woman, that things that I can clearly see are not attacks on me, should be taken as attacks on me. When ever I read some of this, I feel like I’m being gaslit, honestly. I’m in my 40s, FFS! Do men still not realize that I understand when I’m actually being attacked and when I’m not? I don’t know some dude to ride in on a white horse and mansplain to me how I should react to things…
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I feel you; I keep being told what to feel as a Black woman in America, and that’s fucking infuriating…
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Sadly, all we can do is keep explaining things to you and hope we notice when you’re annoyed because you already know, instead of when you’re annoyed because you don’t. If only there were some other way to find out what women think, but there doesn’t seem to be.
(/s /s /s /s)
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Why can’t we just use the equally valid description of “person” behaves badly? Sticking a cute nickname on it may have been fun for making memes, but it’s a sloppy shorthand at best.
Why use language at all to try and understand the world around us? Let’s just grunt and point, since there is no need to bring any nuance to anything… /s
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*sighs
Because that’s just not how humans work. We label things and people because it helps us process info.
Damn I wish that so many people cared as much about actually FIXING societal problems as they seem to about minor aspects of said problems.
If bigoted White women of privilege were not out there weaponing their race and gender against historically marginalized and disenfranchised people en masse, then none of this would be an issue.
And yet…
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Why not both?
Because many White people with unearned privilege don’t want anything to change for the better, frankly. In fact, many are actively working to make things even worse.
Again, I’ll stop calling White women who act this way “Karen” when they stop trying to get Black people abused and killed.
Until then, ‘we’re at odds until we’re even.’
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Here’s Karen, football/soccer star.
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And that is why you document every single instance when you are in proximity to a Karen.
I have to say, it’s the end of a long frustrating day and I haven’t eaten, but there’s something about this particular video that has me spitting tacks and pacing angrily back and forth. White anger at losing entitlement is pathological at this point.
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