Cool It With “Karen” Already

I’ve been seeing more and more “Karen” videos and am getting increasingly disturbed--not only at the obnoxious sense of privilege which manifests in condescending language, racial slurs and dangerous threats to call the police on black folk for basically, you know, existing while black. But I also have consternation about the proliferation of these “Karen” vids while noticing (from my scrolling and in my digital social circles anyway) the relative dearth of analogous “Chad” videos. It’s more entertaining, somehow, to show a woman behaving in this fashion, especially, it seems to me, when it’s in relation to a man. I think this has to do with status and people being expected to know and keep their place. Yes, these women are using their privilege, oblivious to the feelings and concerns of others, but calling them “Karen” is akin, methinks, to calling black people “uppity” when they stray from what others perceive as their proper place. Am I sniffing the powerful odor of sexism in the cyber air?

I wish to emphasize that I don’t have sympathy for the women who are filmed behaving atrociously. But I do fear that the calling out of these women women by using the stereotypical shorthand name is just the latest bit of  ever-pervasive misogyny floating in the zeitgeist. I saw a video recently of a man who was taping a woman whom he said cut him off while both were driving, she gave him the finger and used a racial slur. He followed her home and posted her license plate number and a shot of her house presumably so that she might be doxxed and get the social opprobrium she deserved. I wonder if he’d have tailed a man in the same situation and if the exchange would’ve gone the same way (she was hiding her face and her voice was on the verge of tears--of course, she accused him of attacking her simply by videoing her--ugh). It was an ugly and uncomfortable scene to watch on many levels. Maybe this particular man would’ve behaved the same had the offender been male, but I can’t help believe that because of systemic sexism people in general feel more emboldened to hold a woman accountable through confrontation. I understand there is historical precedent wherein white women are perceived to have some power in this situation, because she has the ability to accuse a black male and be believed (Emmett Till’s murder is a prime example of this horrific legacy.) But the power dynamic in this situation is hierarchical, with the white men doing the enforcing--the women they are “protecting” are clearly a rung or two down from them, and viewed as chattel.

I am aware that there are those who would accuse me of having no sense of humor in this regard. “Aw, c’mon, it’s just more fun to call them Karen.” But it is a demeaning form of “merriment” at the expense, by definition, of women. I don’t think it hypersensitive or unreasonable for me to be suspicious of that result. The fact that it is unsympathetic white women of privilege who are the target does not, for me, make palatable the nasty underside to this practice.

What do I want out of this? Simply for us to stop using the term “Karen,” as the incidents recorded would be no less outrageous without the use of the pejorative epithet, in which women become collateral damage of sloppy anti-racism. I wish too for us to consider and be mindful of the interplay of sexism and racism in these encounters and not be so quick to give our imprimatur, through Liking, Sharing and Rah-rah commenting, to someone using unjust means to obtain justice.