Looking at this Central Park incident & thinking about how white people's appropriation of words like "Karen" is a theft that helps blunt the impact of these words when Black folks use them to name the kinds of racism they were carefully constructed to critique.
We can argue about Dane Cook and Reddit "talk to the manager" meme communities and the timeline of the SNL raisin/potato salad joke all day, but the reality is, "Karen" isn't a new call-out for Black folks, and Black Twitter specifically popularized the "Karen" meme.
Whatever anyone wants to say about Reddit and Dane Cook, Karen as a meme originally trended via Black Twitter after the SNL Karen joke.
That was when "Karen" really entered the mainstream, and it entered AS a pointed critique of white femininity's interactions w Blackness.
That was when "Karen" really entered the mainstream, and it entered AS a pointed critique of white femininity's interactions w Blackness.
If you weren't poking around Twitter that Sunday it might not be something memorable for you, but within hours "Karen" potato salad jokes had merged with Permit Patty memes & it was everywhere.
Whatever earlier "Karen" stuff existed, that was the moment that made the Karen meme.
Whatever earlier "Karen" stuff existed, that was the moment that made the Karen meme.
"Karen" blew up after that SNL sketch, and it VERY much blew up as a meme about white women's interactions with Blackness in ways ranging from culturally oblivious (raisins in potato salad) to racially weaponized white femininity (calling cops on Black kids' lemonade stands).
What really stuck was the connotations of racially-weaponized white femininity as it interacted with formal structural racism (managers and cops).
Did the Karen/manager stuff from Reddit influence that?
Probably.
But "Karen" became a meme about racism, first and foremost.
Did the Karen/manager stuff from Reddit influence that?
Probably.
But "Karen" became a meme about racism, first and foremost.
Here's the thing about language that gains its popularity through Black in-community usage:
Niche white usage prior to popularization doesn't get grandfathered in.
White people don't get to be like "oh a few white people used this earlier so we have homestead rights."
Niche white usage prior to popularization doesn't get grandfathered in.
White people don't get to be like "oh a few white people used this earlier so we have homestead rights."
I have named *many* times that white bros and especially white dirtbag bros have lifted "Karen" and retroactively defined it back to meanings that are convenient to them, basically, "white woman voicing a call-out I don't like."
It's a disingenuous way of masking their misogyny.
It's a disingenuous way of masking their misogyny.
A lot of white bros (and, frankly, some non-white bros as well) have deliberately pretended like naming the cultural theft and the misogyny in the white bro usage of "Karen" at the same time somehow makes both aspects of the critique less valid.
The reality is, when white bros steal "Karen" from Black language and remove the element of critique of weaponized white femininity in order to re-purpose "Karen" as a white-woman specific codeword for "bitch" in their misogynist attacks, they're INCENTIVIZING cultural theft.
When white bros turned "Karen" into a permissable generic substitute for "bitch" when talking about white women (as opposed to its Black discourse-popularized use, as a critique of racially weaponized white femininity), they made it a useful term for misogynists generally.
That's how we went from "Karen" being a white lady who calls cops on Black kids selling candy bars to "Karen" being a term Nazis feel comfortable using to hatefully describe white women observing quarantine and making "degenerate" feminist skits.
I've pointed this out a number of times because 1) I am extremely sick of seeing white dirtbag bros gleefully use "Karen" as a sexist dismissal of any and all critiques of their sexism/racism/ableismvoiced by white women, but also very much because
2) white de-racialization of a Black language used to identify, name, and critique a very specific type of deployment of anti-Black racism is very much a white supremacist mechanism for defanging and blunting that language as an instrument of antiracist critique.
There's a reason that "Karen" gained its popularity on Twitter specifically.
Twitter is a medium that demands an economy of language.
In other words, there's a need to communicate as much as possible in as few words as possible.
The specificity of language is critical.
Twitter is a medium that demands an economy of language.
In other words, there's a need to communicate as much as possible in as few words as possible.
The specificity of language is critical.
The more nuance you can communicate in a single word, the more power that word will give you.
"Karen" used to pack a very specific punch that named the ways that entitled white women use white lady victimhood tropes to get racist authority figures to perform racial violence.
"Karen" used to pack a very specific punch that named the ways that entitled white women use white lady victimhood tropes to get racist authority figures to perform racial violence.
When white bros took "Karen" and repurposed it to just generically mean "bitch who is white," they robbed "Karen" of the racial nuance and specificity it had taken on in Black discourse.
They snatched a surgical tool out of Black people's hands & hammered it into a blunt weapon.
They snatched a surgical tool out of Black people's hands & hammered it into a blunt weapon.
Threads don't go viral on Twitter.
Tweets do.
When you have a message to get out, you need precise language to communicate the nuances of the message.
You can't explicitly map out the nuances of racially-weaponized white femininity in 240 characters or less.
Tweets do.
When you have a message to get out, you need precise language to communicate the nuances of the message.
You can't explicitly map out the nuances of racially-weaponized white femininity in 240 characters or less.
That's why a word like "Karen" is so powerfully useful.
In its original popularized form, it was a rich depository of meaning, a Black community-constructed bit of language that named a particularly complex, ugly, and under-recognized racist strategy in a highly specific way.
In its original popularized form, it was a rich depository of meaning, a Black community-constructed bit of language that named a particularly complex, ugly, and under-recognized racist strategy in a highly specific way.
Cultural appropriation isn't borrowing a book from the public library.
It's thieving a rare manuscript from a closed collection, crossing out the parts you don't like with a Sharpie, then distributing xeroxed copies without attribution or acknowledgment of alteration.
It's thieving a rare manuscript from a closed collection, crossing out the parts you don't like with a Sharpie, then distributing xeroxed copies without attribution or acknowledgment of alteration.
The original Central Park Karen tweet above is by a Black woman, and uses "Karen" in a way that's very much aligned with the original Black-popularized meaning.
It's a powerful reminder of what the term was really intended to mean, and of white dilution of that meaning.
It's a powerful reminder of what the term was really intended to mean, and of white dilution of that meaning.
If you don't have a strong understanding of racialized weaponization of white femininuty take "Karen" at its current white bro-diluted face value, the race of the OP would seem pretty much incidental here.
It would seems like, oh, some lady is being weird to a birdwatcher.
It would seems like, oh, some lady is being weird to a birdwatcher.
If you'd picked up "Karen" from white dirtbag bros who just generically use the term to mean "bitchy white lady," you'd entirely miss the much more serious call out here, the callout of the audacity of this racialized weaponization of white feminine "victimhood" discourse.
The Black-popularized connotations of "Karen" are CORE to this critique.
This is a critique of a white lady lawbreaker calling a structurally racist, racially violent legal authority on a Black man because he asked her to stop breaking the law.
This is a critique of a white lady lawbreaker calling a structurally racist, racially violent legal authority on a Black man because he asked her to stop breaking the law.
What is getting called out here is entitled, un-selfaware, racially-weaponized white feminine deployment of violent structural racism against a Black body.
The callout is of a non-existent/imagined white lady victimhood being used as a narrative means of *actually* targetting a Black person for state-authorized violence, *actually* victimizing a Black person.
That is EXACTLY the behavior "Karen" was specifically meant to name.
That is EXACTLY the behavior "Karen" was specifically meant to name.
But if white dudes have convinced you that "Karen" is just means "opinionated and outspoken white lady," you're not going to have the context you need to read all that nuanced critique into Melody Cooper's use of that word.
AND, if you're a white woman and most of what you've seen of "Karen" controversy is white dudes defending their use of "Karen" to mean "bitchy white lady" and race-unaware white feminists being like "Karen is basically a slur, you may even read Cooper as USING a misogynist slur.
That's not to excuse white women who haven't done their homework and don't understand the racial complexity of the word "Karen" at all.
White folks have a responsibility to read up and understand this sort of shit.
White folks have a responsibility to read up and understand this sort of shit.
At the same time, white folks usually don't bother, because our privilege means we don't have to.
That translates to white people basing their understanding of "Karen" on what they hear other white folks saying.
And what they mostly hear is:
1) a lot of race-blindered white ladies think "Karen is a slur" and
2) a lot of white dude mosogynists using "Karen" to mean "bitch"
And what they mostly hear is:
1) a lot of race-blindered white ladies think "Karen is a slur" and
2) a lot of white dude mosogynists using "Karen" to mean "bitch"
Understanding "Karen" through those two mutually-reinforcing white understandings of the word completely removes the reader's ability to grasp the main point Cooper is making about Central Park Dog Lady, which is a point about violent, racially-weaponized white femininity.
That's how white appropriation and de-racialization of memes/language meant to call out specific performances of racism enable and advance white people's plausible deniability when it comes to "not noticing" the deployment of structural violence.
It's just one of many mechanisms that lead to white folks looking at a white woman faking victimhood at the hands of a Black man as a way to actively and maliciously deploy racist state violence against him to be like "more importantly tho, that poor dog"
I'm not saying that white people would magically be like "oh right, A KAREN, we understand structural violence and the subtleties of white lady racism now," because of course that's not how racism works or has worked, ever.
BUT.
Without white bro appropriation of "Karen," there would be no pretending that "Karen" is just some petty paraphrase of "bitch."
There would be no disingenuous pretense that "Karen" is couched in anything but a very specific critique of white racist entitlement.
Without white bro appropriation of "Karen," there would be no pretending that "Karen" is just some petty paraphrase of "bitch."
There would be no disingenuous pretense that "Karen" is couched in anything but a very specific critique of white racist entitlement.
White appropriation and de-racialization of "Karen" helps white people to claim a degree of plausible deniability when it comes to reading this kind of critique as a critique of generic white feminine bitchiness as opposed to a critique of white feminine rascism.
It helps give white people an excuse to take what is intended as a very direct critique of violent white lady racism and pretend it's just a general invitation to list the ways in which this "Karen" is disagreeable-- an invitation to de-center race.
That's why it's so important to name it when the privileged steal and repurpose the language the oppressed use to name the nuances of their experiences of oppression.
That's why privileged re-weaponization of this stolen language to further other oppressions is doubly galling.
That's why privileged re-weaponization of this stolen language to further other oppressions is doubly galling.
Cultural appropriation is theft, and the theft and repurposing of language meant to name oppression is very much a deliberate undermining of oppressed people's ability to identify injustice and demand its existence be recognized and addressed.
It's no surprise that both Nazis and racist class reductionists are all in on "from our cold dead hands"-ing their de-racialized version of the Karen meme.
They need to underme nuanced critique of racism, bevause they need the issue muddled in order to evade accountability.
They need to underme nuanced critique of racism, bevause they need the issue muddled in order to evade accountability.
Any time we fail to resist that intentional use of racist cultural theft to muddy the waters, however, we further their project of blunting the tools of antiracist critique, specifically the tools of antiracist self-defense that belong to people of color.
Calling out white bros using "Karen" as a socially acceptable version of "bitchy white lady" is partially about giving no quarter to misogyny.
Even more importantly, though, it's about countering their efforts to use cultural theft to cement their own privilege twice over.
Even more importantly, though, it's about countering their efforts to use cultural theft to cement their own privilege twice over.
If we sit quietly and let them what they steal, we end up allowing them to impoverish language crafted to name oppression.
We let them reconstruct language that isn't theirs in a way that protects oppressive violence-- in this case, racist violence.
We let them reconstruct language that isn't theirs in a way that protects oppressive violence-- in this case, racist violence.
Privileged supremacists will always seek to redefine popular language in ways that minimize the effectiveness of anti-oppressive work & maximize their ability to grind their heels in the faces of as many of the oppressed as possible.
That is how they maintain their supremacy.
That is how they maintain their supremacy.
It's the job of movement to recognize the complicated ways in which these violent efforts to raid the language of the oppressed end up advancing one and often multiple agendas of privileged supremacy.
It's our job to identify the intersections, join in solidarity, & resist.
It's our job to identify the intersections, join in solidarity, & resist.
Resisting white supremacist appropriation and de-racialization of "Karen" certainly isn't the end all and be all of the work of movement.
At the same time, it's an incredibly rich object lesson in how supremacy disingenuously and constantly operates on multiple axes at once.
At the same time, it's an incredibly rich object lesson in how supremacy disingenuously and constantly operates on multiple axes at once.
It's a reminder that when we as oppressed people pretend oppressions happen only one at a time, we play to privileged supremacy's strategy of divide-and-conquer and undermine each other.
When white women let white supremacists play to our fragility by buying that "Karen is a slur"-- when we play into white feminine victimhood to dodge a critique of our racism-- we reinforce white misogynists' cultural theft AND undermine Black people's nuanced naming of racism.
The Central Park dog lady very strongly demonstrates that the white lady racism "Karen" was meant to call out absolutely exists.
A lot of white people have responded in ways that demonstrate a total lack of understanding of that dynamic.
A lot of white people have responded in ways that demonstrate a total lack of understanding of that dynamic.
The more we give in to & accept white re-interpretations of "Karen" that remove the connotations of racist weaponization of white feminine "victimhood"/fragility, the more we help protect the white men stealing "Karen" and, more importantly, the white woman racists who embody it.
Liberatory movement teaches us that the choice to say "pass" when oppressive behavior is complicated and tricky is very much a choice to enable oppression.
The master Audre Lorde names will always try to complicate things by declaring oppressed people's tools to be his own.
The master Audre Lorde names will always try to complicate things by declaring oppressed people's tools to be his own.
When you see privileged people making that kind of thefting claim, know that this is the role they are choosing to assume in the face of liberation struggle.
Don't choose to take them at their word.
Choose to fight them.
Any other choice is a choice to enable.
Don't choose to take them at their word.
Choose to fight them.
Any other choice is a choice to enable.
The end.
