What truly staggers me is that the people who are perfectly happy to do this kind of stereotyping are almost always my most politically engaged, left-wing "woke" friends, who are regularly up in arms about unfair treatment of minorities, cultural insensitivity and other sins of not treating the oppressed and downtrodden on their merits. They would be outraged if someone, for example, used a generic Italian-sounding or Chinese-sounding name to refer to a person of that ethnicity.
It seems that they're not against such behaviour, they just want to choose their preferred targets. It's bad if the right-wing does it. Apparently it's fine if the left-wing does.
I am suprised you are "staggered", left wing "woke" people are still people and are just as capable of vile, unkind, prejudiced behaviour as others. The only difference is they think they are not.
This is idiotic. Seriously. Using the make Karen as an insult is not prejudice. Nor is it comparable to the vile and potentially deadly behaviour it calls out.
A woman called Karen who is a kind person might feel insulted. A black man attacked by the women pejoratively called Karens might die.
Nobody has said they are the same. What orfeo said was that if stereotyping is wrong in principle, then it is wrong when applied to privileged white women. That's not the same as saying stereotyping is equally wrong in all circumstances or that the consequences are equally grave in all circumstances.
This all reminds me of an episode of The Young Ones, The Party. Jennifer Saunders plays a woman called Helen who hates her name. Viv asks her why and she says, "Well. You know. Hell en Back."
In addition to what @Doublethink said, I'd be investigating whether my child was involved in racial-relating bullying herself, since that would be the most logical reason children were calling that name.
The naivety involved in thinking that people only get called names when it's LOGICAL is breathtaking.
What truly staggers me is that the people who are perfectly happy to do this kind of stereotyping are almost always my most politically engaged, left-wing "woke" friends, who are regularly up in arms about unfair treatment of minorities, cultural insensitivity and other sins of not treating the oppressed and downtrodden on their merits. They would be outraged if someone, for example, used a generic Italian-sounding or Chinese-sounding name to refer to a person of that ethnicity.
It seems that they're not against such behaviour, they just want to choose their preferred targets. It's bad if the right-wing does it. Apparently it's fine if the left-wing does.
I am suprised you are "staggered", left wing "woke" people are still people and are just as capable of vile, unkind, prejudiced behaviour as others. The only difference is they think they are not.
This is idiotic. Seriously. Using the make Karen as an insult is not prejudice. Nor is it comparable to the vile and potentially deadly behaviour it calls out.
A woman called Karen who is a kind person might feel insulted. A black man attacked by the women pejoratively called Karens might die.
Dear God. Do you not understand your own spectacular conflation, right there in that last paragraph, of 2 different groups people being called "Karen" for 2 completely different reasons?
Do you not grasp that that conflation is my ENTIRE FUCKING POINT?! What the hell does a black man being attacked have to do with a woman whose name is actually Karen?
If you want to call out women who are doing vile and potentially deadly behaviour, go right ahead. But there is zero need, ZERO, for you to fucking well use my sister's name to do it.
It's nothing more than the sort of lazy stereotyping that you'd be horrified by in other circumstances. I mean, look, you even manage to individualise "a black man" while reducing the other side to "women pejoratively called Karens". You can't even be arsed to consider that each individual Karen is an individual, some of them nasty but some of them women who've never done a fucking thing to a black man, who were assigned the name at birth.
Identify the behaviour you're criticising. Fucking grow up and use your words. What's idiotic is that you apparently cannot.
And very nearly a new thread in the other place. Because whether it's 'logical' or not, I read a person casually connecting my sister with the possibility of killing a black man.
No doubt, she (lilbuddha, not my sister) will be back to tell me how no, I'm getting it all wrong, there's no connection. Apart from, you know, wanting to use the exact same word for 2 completely different things. But they're not the same. It's just the same word, designed to connect a behaviour to a particular demographic based on the gender, race and age group in which a particular name is most common... oh yeah, orfeo, your sister is part of that demographic. But this is nothing to do with her.
What orfeo said was that if stereotyping is wrong in principle, then it is wrong when applied to privileged white women. That's not the same as saying stereotyping is equally wrong in all circumstances or that the consequences are equally grave in all circumstances.
Yes.
The problem here ISTM is the notion of "punching up". The replacement of the very concept that acts can be wrong or not in principle with the concept that anything goes as long as it's at the expense of those who are "up" but nobody has any freedom at the expense of those who are "down".
True morality is double-edged; if you want to count it wrong to do X to you or say Y about you then you have to not do X to or say Y about other people.
Karen started as a description used by (mostly Black) retail workers in the US to describe a certain type of customer's behavior. There is a culture of entitlement among some white women that is pretty awful to interact with. I'm a white woman in the US and I was taught some of these behaviors- I just worked in retail long enough to know better.
It's gallows humor. That women who fit the description get upset by it and think they can change it is peak irony.
What a pity you didn't read it. Otherwise saying THIS would be impossible.
That women who fit the description get upset by it and think they can change it is peak irony.
At no stage were we talking about women who fit the description. I am not a woman who fits the description. I am a man who is upset because there is zero evidence that a loved person who is in my life "fits the description".
Karen started as a description used by (mostly Black) retail workers in the US to describe a certain type of customer's behavior. There is a culture of entitlement among some white women that is pretty awful to interact with. I'm a white woman in the US and I was taught some of these behaviors- I just worked in retail long enough to know better.
And might I add, this is basically you saying "Oh, I look like a Karen, but please don't include me in the stereotype because I'm promising you I'm not a Karen. Please continue to use it against everyone else who looks like me, that's fine. I'm a different and special individual."
Bugger orfeo's sister and all the other women actually named Karen. You're okay and that's what matters. Oh honey, it doesn't mean you. You're one of the good ones.
Meanwhile, every black retail worker who has never met you before sees you walking into the store and thinks uh-oh, here comes a potential Karen.
I said at the start of the thread, I haven't asked her. She has enough shit on her plate right now to not have a lot of time for punching down or threatening the lives of men of colour.
I know of at least 2 other women named Karen who are unhappy about this. One of them is reading this thread.
Addendum: in any case, the basis of this thread is me being offended, not my sister. And shocked at the lack of principle. Ricardus and Russ have pretty much encapsulated that for me.
If anyone is going to argue that we can only have this sort of reaction to things directed at us personally, I look forward to seeing a heck of a lot of Ship material deleted.
I mean, if you want to call someone out for being entitled and stuck-up, why do you need to focus on their gender, skin colour and approximate age?
Well done lilbuddha. For defending a term that is sexist, racist and ageist. Just because the race is white.
This is ridiculous. Incredibly ridiculous. I have not once said that using a person's name as an insult is OK. Not once.
I've said that it is not the same as the behaviour to which it is attached. Which is what your OP implies.
What truly staggers me is that the people who are perfectly happy to do this kind of stereotyping are almost always my most politically engaged, left-wing "woke" friends, who are regularly up in arms about unfair treatment of minorities, cultural insensitivity and other sins of not treating the oppressed and downtrodden on their merits. They would be outraged if someone, for example, used a generic Italian-sounding or Chinese-sounding name to refer to a person of that ethnicity.
Using Karen to describe a behaviour is not implying that every person named Karen uses that behaviour.
My friend Susan is not thought to be lazy simply because this device is so named. No one thinks my friend Richard is an arsehole, even though he goes by Dick.
The reason that Karen is not the same as calling a generic Mexican man Juan is that white people are not seen as a monolith, but Mexicans are.
Is it a nice thing to have one's name associated with a bad behaviour? No. Is it stereotyping people with the name Karen? Also no. Neither is it stereotyping all middle-aged white women.
There is sexism in this dynamic, but not where you think. A white man confronting a minority is going to be seen as potentially aggressive and will be slightly more accountable for their behaviour. White women are going to be perceived as victims automatically. And that is going to draw a greater threat response against the minority person they are attacking. Especially if that person is a black man.
It is society's sexism towards women that these women are using as armour.
Ageism? I'm not sure about that. The bulk of the reports of the behaviour do seem to be from middle-aged women. I'd guess because they are secure enough in the power dynamic to do so.
Racist? This is bullshit. Complete bullshit. For one, a black woman calling the police is not as likely to be responded to in the first place. And she is likely going to be considered part of the problem.
White women using their whiteness to call down punishment on black men is a real thing. And, afuckinggain, no one is saying all white women do this or even all middle-aged white women do this.
Some people will say that only white people can be racist because they have the power. I disagree, racist is racist no matter who uses it. But the power is the thing. A black person being racist towards white people has no substantive effect on their lives, so it is not the same thing in practice as the reverse.
It is not racist to call out the effect that a white woman calling the police on a black man has. The racism is in that effect.
Adding: There is a load of privilege in comparing the inconvenience of one's name being associated with an insult to serious instances of racism. One guess on what sort of privilege that is.
In addition to what @Doublethink said, I'd be investigating whether my child was involved in racial-relating bullying herself, since that would be the most logical reason children were calling that name.
The naivety involved in thinking that people only get called names when it's LOGICAL is breathtaking.
If you can move past your emotion to read--seriously you sound pretty stressed--I didn't say that. I particularly said I would investigate the reasons Doublethink mentioned and that I would also check a logical reason I thought of and mentioned.
Meanwhile, every black retail worker who has never met you before sees you walking into the store and thinks uh-oh, here comes a potential Karen.
They do. I understand why.
Right, and that's totally fine with me. I will try to be decent and not justify their valid concern. In the end, fixing racism will involve all of us making sacrifices. So far people named Karen haven't made sacrifices 1/100 as bad as any Black person in the whole fucking country I live in. So now, I'm not a bit worried.
Well, at least there was one woman who stood up to the racist rant of a customer. Considering she was standing up to a wealthy CEO of a tech company, her name should be Hero.
Funny, I know at least two Karens, neither of which I thought about in connection to the label Karen until this thread.
I had not thought of my friend Karen in that connection either, not until she made a light joke about it. And we laughed because she's kind of the opposite of a karen. Then we moved on because no one felt threatened or concerned.
I know 3 people named Karen. None of whom know the others, and all have mentioned this to me, 2 of them trying to understand if they are "allowed" to feel hurt or not. Yes, other people have it worse @lilbuddha. Totally misses the point.
I'd strongly suggest to stop trying to compare this to other situations like systemic and structural racism. Which is about as reasonable as comparing it to driver aggression toward people on bicycles. It's not the same. STFU about that etc as @orfeo has stated.
I broke the nose of another boy at age 12 because of the use of my first name in a TV show re a character, and the teasing which basically broke me. Remarkably the vice-principal understood and saved me, bless him. I have been called by my second name ever since BTW. And I continue to enjoy the vindication of the nose-breaking and VP's sensitivity. God forgive me (or not actually).
If you want to stop the use of something, I don't actually recommend breaking someone's nose, but you do need to go at one person in any group who is bullying you - often the weakest one who will be affected the most strongly - and be really emotional and upset with your verbalizations toward them and how offensive they've been. Too much aggression risks bringing them to aggression, where the goal is to make them feel the effects of what they're doing. Making them cry means success. Which is better than breaking their nose.
I was regularly made fun of and mocked for stuttering as a kid. Everyone in my family knows how much I hate Porky Pig because I am so fucking sick of being made fun by being compared to him. But in the end, that's just normal. The problem was the bullying not the pig. I have never asked anyone to take porky pig off the air.* If someone is bullied for having the name Karen, the problem isn't the name, it's the fucking bullies!
*If they did ask, I would suggest a more general portrayal of stuttering instead of just mocking it.
I can feel sorry for Karens out there. The short version of my real name is also a slang rude word (as some of you may know!). But it is the name I use all the time, even when I was being introduced to five year old school kids during assembly: cue three minutes of hysterical giggles, to get used to the idea. Some of my parishioners even refused to call me by it. You'd think grown ups would be able to distinguish between me and the naughty connotation of my name; but some clearly can't!
But I use the slang word myself and don't feel slighted when others do.
However, if the word 'Karen' is supposed to somehow be pejorative about people who behave in a certain way, well it's hardly a great example. It's gender specific to begin with, so it's inaccurate if it's supposed to apply to both women and men, which is arguable anyway. Also why use a proper noun for an unacceptable behaviour, and thus stigmatise anyone called by that name? Shall we call rapists 'Mikes', after Mike Tyson, call murderers 'Freds' or 'Rosemarys' after the Wests? Shall we call tax-defrauders 'Jimmys' or 'Kens' (after Jimmy Carr and Ken Dodd)? Johns already have a proud and long history as customers of the Oldest Profession in the world. I know of a couple of guys done for child porn: anyone know any other 'Joes' out there, or warned their kids off the 'Robs' on the internet? So why should Karen get the special treatment?
I'm not saying lives depend on it! But proper nouns are tricky. They can detract from the real issue. Think Chinese 'flu.
There's a lot of over-the-top posturing on this thread.
Everyone agrees that the behaviour that has recently become denoted by the name "Karen" is worse than the hurt and insult to people who are actually named "Karen" for having their name turned in to a pretty horrible descriptor.
That's not the question. Here are two bad things. Thing A is much worse. Thing B is still a bad thing. It doesn't magically become an OK thing by standing next to a worse thing.
There are lots of names that are emblematic of particular groups of people. Many of them are pretty innocuous. Using "Joe" or "Juan" to call to mind a random white American or Mexican man doesn't insult people who are actually called "Joe" or "Juan" - there are no traits, beyond Hispanicness, associated with "Juan", and nothing beyond "generic (probably white) American in "Joe".
Tarquin, Rupert, and the like get used slightly pejoratively, but the strong association is with class, rather than particular behaviours. Again, actual Tarquins and Ruperts are unlikely to be hurt by being thought posh, because they probably are.
Are their other personal names whose use is anywhere like such a strong perjorative as "Karen"? I can't think of one offhand.
(There's also a difference, I think, between sharing a name with a particular TV / film / whatever character, where their (your) name is used to call to mind a particular person with that name, and this use of "Karen". We're not calling to mind a specific racist TV character who is called "Karen" with this use - it's referring specifically to the name "Karen" as the sort of name that entitled racists are likely to have.)
My other half has a name commonly used as a slur for junior army officers by the other ranks. He finds this incredibly funny as he in no way resembles this, nonetheless it wouldn't be too polite to make the joke to his face, though even that wouldn't bother him (and has been done by squaddie pals and amused him greatly).
If a bunch of squaddies dealing with an actual twit junior officer (whose incompetence could, for example, get them killed) should want to call the twit that neither of us are bothered by it at all.
But you know, maybe white people shouldn't take up appropriating gallows humour from POC dealing with racists, because unlike the squaddies dealing with the 'Rupert', or the POC, we are not in a potentially dangerous one-down position and what is justified for others, may be just pretentious or rude for you or me.
The problem being encapsulated in shorthand by the name in the 'Karen' instance is a real one however and anyone who thinks it isn't or that it's OK to tell POC to shut the fuck up about the problems of systemic racism it encapsulates, needs to go read into the history of lynching. The idea of 'fragile' white femininity being menaced by Black people is a racist belief and racists act on it and weaponise it. It is not sexist to draw attention to this.
Someone acting in this way (like the woman who made the hoax call to the police on the Black bird watcher) is a racist and potentially a very callous or dangerous one. If the epithet 'Karen' helps draw attention to that then maybe its done its bit in raising consciousness of this, but I would still not be keen as a white person to appropriate the word and using it to someone's face as a white person who is not endangered strikes me as off. If they're being a massive racist and I need to tell them that, I would go with 'you're being a massive racist'.
<snip>
Someone acting in this way (like the woman who made the hoax call to the police on the Black bird watcher) is a racist and potentially a very callous or dangerous one. If the epithet 'Karen' helps draw attention to that then maybe its done its bit in raising consciousness of this, but I would still not be keen as a white person to appropriate the word and using it to someone's face as a white person who is not endangered strikes me as off. If they're being a massive racist and I need to tell them that, I would go with 'you're being a massive racist'.
The usage of ‘Karen’ I am hearing is about generically entitled behaviour, and certainly ‘punching down’, but it is not particularly associated with race. It certainly includes white on white interaction - bawling out a shop assistant, or the cashier at the petrol station. The way I’m hearing it used, it could in principal be the behaviour of a black woman, though I’ve not in fact encountered an instance where it is. Maybe there’s a pond difference in play.
<snip>
Someone acting in this way (like the woman who made the hoax call to the police on the Black bird watcher) is a racist and potentially a very callous or dangerous one. If the epithet 'Karen' helps draw attention to that then maybe its done its bit in raising consciousness of this, but I would still not be keen as a white person to appropriate the word and using it to someone's face as a white person who is not endangered strikes me as off. If they're being a massive racist and I need to tell them that, I would go with 'you're being a massive racist'.
The usage of ‘Karen’ I am hearing is about generically entitled behaviour, and certainly ‘punching down’, but it is not particularly associated with race. It certainly includes white on white interaction - bawling out a shop assistant, or the cashier at the petrol station. The way I’m hearing it used, it could in principal be the behaviour of a black woman,
But not really. In our societies, black women do not have the clout to call down any punishment.
Yes. I agree. The main point I’m making is that the usage I’m hearing is unrelated to the race of the people concerned. It’s not per se a white on black (or other minority ethnic group) issue.
Host hat on
Looking at some post further up thread, this is a gentle reminder to keep the tone and temperature Purgatorial. If it’s making you too angry, step away from the keyboard - or take it to Hell. Don’t get personal in Purgatory. Host hat off
BroJames Purgatory Host
It's a term that was developed by Black women to talk about a specific kind of racist behaviour against them. Now we have non - POC appropriating it, expanding the definition, and then attacking POC when they talk about it!
That's not the question. Here are two bad things. Thing A is much worse. Thing B is still a bad thing. It doesn't magically become an OK thing by standing next to a worse thing.
I wonder if women named Mary Sue think that other people mean them when they (the other people) talk about narcissistic traits in writers of fiction. Do they cry over coffee with their girlfriends, saying, "But I don't do that. Why would they use my name like that?"
That's not the question. Here are two bad things. Thing A is much worse. Thing B is still a bad thing. It doesn't magically become an OK thing by standing next to a worse thing.
Bingo.
You are the one who compared thing B to thing A. A couple of others participated in that, but your OP made that comparison.
What truly staggers me is that the people who are perfectly happy to do this kind of stereotyping are almost always my most politically engaged, left-wing "woke" friends, who are regularly up in arms about unfair treatment of minorities, cultural insensitivity and other sins of not treating the oppressed and downtrodden on their merits. They would be outraged if someone, for example, used a generic Italian-sounding or Chinese-sounding name to refer to a person of that ethnicity.
It seems that they're not against such behaviour, they just want to choose their preferred targets. It's bad if the right-wing does it. Apparently it's fine if the left-wing does.
It's a term that was developed by Black women to talk about a specific kind of racist behaviour against them. Now we have non - POC appropriating it, expanding the definition, and then attacking POC when they talk about it!
I think you're collapsing all non-POC actors in the process into one group, and in consequence introducing an absurdity and inconsistency into your description that misrepresents the objectors.
A more accurate description would be:
Group 1 come up with a mostly anti-racist, but also mildly sexist, meme, to attack racist women.
Group 2 pick up on the sexist elements and use the same meme to attack women perceived as acting in any overly entitled way (including racism, but also including behaviour which is objectionable for non-racist reasons, and behaviour which men would generally not be criticised for).
Group 3 call group 2 on their sexism. Rightly so.
Of course it looks absurd if you see groups 2 and 3 as one entity because they are both mostly white, but that's just bad analysis. Considered separately, both groups are, if not rational, at least consistent.
Also "appropriation" is the wrong word to use for a meme. Memes replicate independently of the intentions of their propagators. That's basically what the word implies. No one has the right to complain if they put out a meme and it takes on a life of its own.
I am surprised nobody has mentioned the Karen people of Vietnam. It strikes me that the use of the word Karen as an insult could easily be mistakenly seen as a racist attack on Vietnamese Karens. Its sort of similar to using the word niggardly. There are plenty of other names people could use which would not be interpreted this way. Here are some suggestions:
I wonder if women named Mary Sue think that other people mean them when they (the other people) talk about narcissistic traits in writers of fiction. Do they cry over coffee with their girlfriends, saying, "But I don't do that. Why would they use my name like that?"
I'll admit that of all the examples posted on the thread, this is the one that brings me closest to thinking 'Hm, maybe I am being a bit hypocritical', but I still don't think it's the same, because I've always seen Mary Sue used as the name of the character, whereas it is the author who is being accused of narcissism.
That is, Mary Sue is a name for a fictional character who was clearly written as wish-fulfilment for the author. Insofar as it implies that Mary Sue has any characteristics, those characteristics are positive ones. I've never seen Mary Sue used as the name of the author.
I’d never heard of this until this thread, but turns out my 11 year old has. However, she has no idea of the original context - it’s literally just another playground insult. That strikes me as a bad thing, especially for any kids called Karen.
Yes, it’s not as bad as the racist behaviour that it’s originally supposed to be calling out, but it seems to me that is missing the point. Something is either a bad / unhelpful thing in its own right, or it’s not. The fact that there’s something worse (or even that it stems from something worse) is irrelevant. Otherwise the logic is next time someone has cause to complain about anything, they shouldn’t, because genocide is worse, or something.
That's not the question. Here are two bad things. Thing A is much worse. Thing B is still a bad thing. It doesn't magically become an OK thing by standing next to a worse thing.
Bingo.
You are the one who compared thing B to thing A. A couple of others participated in that, but your OP made that comparison.
What truly staggers me is that the people who are perfectly happy to do this kind of stereotyping are almost always my most politically engaged, left-wing "woke" friends, who are regularly up in arms about unfair treatment of minorities, cultural insensitivity and other sins of not treating the oppressed and downtrodden on their merits. They would be outraged if someone, for example, used a generic Italian-sounding or Chinese-sounding name to refer to a person of that ethnicity.
It seems that they're not against such behaviour, they just want to choose their preferred targets. It's bad if the right-wing does it. Apparently it's fine if the left-wing does.
You brought racism into this.
You really have no reading comprehension to speak of. The whole point is that these are both bad things of the same nature, not of the same degree.
If you can't understand that without trying to make it into a competition then that is entirely your problem.
And you're the one who decided to escalate the bad behaviour of white women from acting entitled and wanting to speak to the manager into risking the lives of black men. Again, competition. Wanting to prove that my sister's name being used as an insult is not as important as Black Lives Matter. I never said it was. But you think that's it a competition, and you need to win.
And that of course is the whole source of my complaint. Left-wing friends who need to WIN rather than to be correct. Who don't operate on principles. I am not interested in WINNING, which is exactly why this pisses me off so much. I'm pissed off that people are so interested in WINNING that they're quite prepared to make my sister's name into collateral damage. Completely unnecessary collateral damage.
Black Lives Matter does not have to mean White Women's Names Don't Mean Shit.
In fact both things boil to a matter of respecting other human beings, and as a matter of principle they should both be important for reflecting the same principle. And don't you dare think that means "equally" important. It's not a competition.
The whole point is that if you think human beings are essentially worth respecting, you should not be picking and choosing which human beings are worthy of respect on the basis of things like gender or skin colour. What should matter is how people actually behave. Denigrating white people just because they are white is no better than denigrating black people because they are black. Lauding black people just because they are black is no better than lauding white people just because they are white.
Taking a name and using it pejoratively just because it's a name from white culture (it's Danish in origin by the way, simply a form of Katherine) is no better than taking a name and using it pejoratively just because it's a name from a non-white culture. That's all that I said. I stand by it. Of course I brought race into it, the whole damn point of the insult is to be racial. It's idiotic to try to use that as some sort of critique of my original post, and only demonstrates that you do not understand the post at all.
I wonder if women named Mary Sue think that other people mean them when they (the other people) talk about narcissistic traits in writers of fiction. Do they cry over coffee with their girlfriends, saying, "But I don't do that. Why would they use my name like that?"
Maybe you should go ask them, instead of spending all your time trying to tell me why it's wrong to get offended. I have zero interest in your opinion on this because, again, I've witnessed what happens when you get offended.
And you're not actually mounting any kind of argument other than minimising the validity of my feelings. Maybe I should return the favour next time you're cranky.
That's not the question. Here are two bad things. Thing A is much worse. Thing B is still a bad thing. It doesn't magically become an OK thing by standing next to a worse thing.
Bingo.
You are the one who compared thing B to thing A. A couple of others participated in that, but your OP made that comparison.
What truly staggers me is that the people who are perfectly happy to do this kind of stereotyping are almost always my most politically engaged, left-wing "woke" friends, who are regularly up in arms about unfair treatment of minorities, cultural insensitivity and other sins of not treating the oppressed and downtrodden on their merits. They would be outraged if someone, for example, used a generic Italian-sounding or Chinese-sounding name to refer to a person of that ethnicity.
It seems that they're not against such behaviour, they just want to choose their preferred targets. It's bad if the right-wing does it. Apparently it's fine if the left-wing does.
You brought racism into this.
You really have no reading comprehension to speak of. The whole point is that these are both bad things of the same nature, not of the same degree.
One, it is the nature of comparisons that degree of the comparators will be considered, especially if no caveat is included.
Two, calling a person a Karen is not racist. It is calling out the white privilege that a particular subset of white people have.
Three, the sexism involved is not on the user of the name, but in the dynamic that allows white women to play the victim card when actually being the aggressor. Actually, this one is a twofer as it tags both racism and sexism.
Four, it is not really ageist either. Young women typically do not have the confidence nor believability of the middle-age and older women are more likely to be fearful of immediate reprisal. So it is natural that the main body of the behaviour will be displayed by middle-aged women.
If you can't understand that without trying to make it into a competition then that is entirely your problem.
Again, when you brought race into it, you brought the comparison. I am not making this a competition, I am pointing out the fallacy in your case.
It would have been simple to say something to the effect of "Left-Wing people who claim to be about respect are causing disrespect to people called Karen by using that name as an insult."
By brining in the race, age and sexism intro it, you are elevating the problem to the level of those problems. Even taking out the potentially lethal result of the behaviour, calling these women Karens is not the same as any of those.
Anger, however righteous, begets anger. Society can't survive many more people rushing to prove that they are entitled to be angry, however worthy their cause.
Soehow there has to be a way of de-escalating this constant rush to anger and still achieve the just society we are looking for.
One, it is the nature of comparisons that degree of the comparators will be considered, especially if no caveat is included.
Two, calling a person a Karen is not racist. It is calling out the white privilege that a particular subset of white people have.
Three, the sexism involved is not on the user of the name, but in the dynamic that allows white women to play the victim card when actually being the aggressor. Actually, this one is a twofer as it tags both racism and sexism.
Four, it is not really ageist either. Young women typically do not have the confidence nor believability of the middle-age and older women are more likely to be fearful of immediate reprisal. So it is natural that the main body of the behaviour will be displayed by middle-aged women.
Yes, how dare women actually have confidence as they get older...
The name is picked because it is associated with women of a certain race and age.
The rest... well that's nothing more than justifying stereotyping by claiming that this behaviour is correlated with that same demographic. Shock horror. Older women have more confidence than younger women. White people have more assertiveness than black people. No shit Sherlock.
But it's still stereotyping. It's still taking a name of women and not giving a damn whether or not they've actually engaged in the behaviour. And it's doing that because of their gender, age and race.
I really don't get you. You know why? Because you've gone and said how calling people insulting names is not okay, and yet here you are again and again and again lining up all these reasons why.
I'm done here, because all that's happened is my thesis has been proved. It's the most politically aware "woke" people that will keep providing justifications for utilising my sister's name as an insult. It's okay because she's from the privileged race and the privileged age group. And it's the people who spend a heck of a lot of their time upset at all the disadvantages of certain kinds of people who seem to feel quite comfortable about my sister having a disadvantage. Because it's not a big enough or important enough disadvantage to stop. Even though stopping it would be a heck of a lot simpler than most disadvantages.
Well, it's important to ME. And I'm going to keep asking people to stop doing such a damned unnecessary thing.
Comments
Nobody has said they are the same. What orfeo said was that if stereotyping is wrong in principle, then it is wrong when applied to privileged white women. That's not the same as saying stereotyping is equally wrong in all circumstances or that the consequences are equally grave in all circumstances.
The naivety involved in thinking that people only get called names when it's LOGICAL is breathtaking.
Dear God. Do you not understand your own spectacular conflation, right there in that last paragraph, of 2 different groups people being called "Karen" for 2 completely different reasons?
Do you not grasp that that conflation is my ENTIRE FUCKING POINT?! What the hell does a black man being attacked have to do with a woman whose name is actually Karen?
If you want to call out women who are doing vile and potentially deadly behaviour, go right ahead. But there is zero need, ZERO, for you to fucking well use my sister's name to do it.
It's nothing more than the sort of lazy stereotyping that you'd be horrified by in other circumstances. I mean, look, you even manage to individualise "a black man" while reducing the other side to "women pejoratively called Karens". You can't even be arsed to consider that each individual Karen is an individual, some of them nasty but some of them women who've never done a fucking thing to a black man, who were assigned the name at birth.
Identify the behaviour you're criticising. Fucking grow up and use your words. What's idiotic is that you apparently cannot.
Well done lilbuddha. For defending a term that is sexist, racist and ageist. Just because the race is white.
And very nearly a new thread in the other place. Because whether it's 'logical' or not, I read a person casually connecting my sister with the possibility of killing a black man.
No doubt, she (lilbuddha, not my sister) will be back to tell me how no, I'm getting it all wrong, there's no connection. Apart from, you know, wanting to use the exact same word for 2 completely different things. But they're not the same. It's just the same word, designed to connect a behaviour to a particular demographic based on the gender, race and age group in which a particular name is most common... oh yeah, orfeo, your sister is part of that demographic. But this is nothing to do with her.
Yes.
The problem here ISTM is the notion of "punching up". The replacement of the very concept that acts can be wrong or not in principle with the concept that anything goes as long as it's at the expense of those who are "up" but nobody has any freedom at the expense of those who are "down".
True morality is double-edged; if you want to count it wrong to do X to you or say Y about you then you have to not do X to or say Y about other people.
Karen started as a description used by (mostly Black) retail workers in the US to describe a certain type of customer's behavior. There is a culture of entitlement among some white women that is pretty awful to interact with. I'm a white woman in the US and I was taught some of these behaviors- I just worked in retail long enough to know better.
It's gallows humor. That women who fit the description get upset by it and think they can change it is peak irony.
What a pity you didn't read it. Otherwise saying THIS would be impossible.
At no stage were we talking about women who fit the description. I am not a woman who fits the description. I am a man who is upset because there is zero evidence that a loved person who is in my life "fits the description".
And might I add, this is basically you saying "Oh, I look like a Karen, but please don't include me in the stereotype because I'm promising you I'm not a Karen. Please continue to use it against everyone else who looks like me, that's fine. I'm a different and special individual."
Bugger orfeo's sister and all the other women actually named Karen. You're okay and that's what matters. Oh honey, it doesn't mean you. You're one of the good ones.
Meanwhile, every black retail worker who has never met you before sees you walking into the store and thinks uh-oh, here comes a potential Karen.
I said at the start of the thread, I haven't asked her. She has enough shit on her plate right now to not have a lot of time for punching down or threatening the lives of men of colour.
I know of at least 2 other women named Karen who are unhappy about this. One of them is reading this thread.
If anyone is going to argue that we can only have this sort of reaction to things directed at us personally, I look forward to seeing a heck of a lot of Ship material deleted.
I've said that it is not the same as the behaviour to which it is attached. Which is what your OP implies. Using Karen to describe a behaviour is not implying that every person named Karen uses that behaviour.
My friend Susan is not thought to be lazy simply because this device is so named. No one thinks my friend Richard is an arsehole, even though he goes by Dick.
The reason that Karen is not the same as calling a generic Mexican man Juan is that white people are not seen as a monolith, but Mexicans are.
Is it a nice thing to have one's name associated with a bad behaviour? No. Is it stereotyping people with the name Karen? Also no. Neither is it stereotyping all middle-aged white women.
There is sexism in this dynamic, but not where you think. A white man confronting a minority is going to be seen as potentially aggressive and will be slightly more accountable for their behaviour. White women are going to be perceived as victims automatically. And that is going to draw a greater threat response against the minority person they are attacking. Especially if that person is a black man.
It is society's sexism towards women that these women are using as armour.
Ageism? I'm not sure about that. The bulk of the reports of the behaviour do seem to be from middle-aged women. I'd guess because they are secure enough in the power dynamic to do so.
Racist? This is bullshit. Complete bullshit. For one, a black woman calling the police is not as likely to be responded to in the first place. And she is likely going to be considered part of the problem.
White women using their whiteness to call down punishment on black men is a real thing. And, afuckinggain, no one is saying all white women do this or even all middle-aged white women do this.
Some people will say that only white people can be racist because they have the power. I disagree, racist is racist no matter who uses it. But the power is the thing. A black person being racist towards white people has no substantive effect on their lives, so it is not the same thing in practice as the reverse.
It is not racist to call out the effect that a white woman calling the police on a black man has. The racism is in that effect.
Adding: There is a load of privilege in comparing the inconvenience of one's name being associated with an insult to serious instances of racism. One guess on what sort of privilege that is.
They do. I understand why.
If you can move past your emotion to read--seriously you sound pretty stressed--I didn't say that. I particularly said I would investigate the reasons Doublethink mentioned and that I would also check a logical reason I thought of and mentioned.
Right, and that's totally fine with me. I will try to be decent and not justify their valid concern. In the end, fixing racism will involve all of us making sacrifices. So far people named Karen haven't made sacrifices 1/100 as bad as any Black person in the whole fucking country I live in. So now, I'm not a bit worried.
I had not thought of my friend Karen in that connection either, not until she made a light joke about it. And we laughed because she's kind of the opposite of a karen. Then we moved on because no one felt threatened or concerned.
I know 3 people named Karen. None of whom know the others, and all have mentioned this to me, 2 of them trying to understand if they are "allowed" to feel hurt or not. Yes, other people have it worse @lilbuddha. Totally misses the point.
I'd strongly suggest to stop trying to compare this to other situations like systemic and structural racism. Which is about as reasonable as comparing it to driver aggression toward people on bicycles. It's not the same. STFU about that etc as @orfeo has stated.
I broke the nose of another boy at age 12 because of the use of my first name in a TV show re a character, and the teasing which basically broke me. Remarkably the vice-principal understood and saved me, bless him. I have been called by my second name ever since BTW. And I continue to enjoy the vindication of the nose-breaking and VP's sensitivity. God forgive me (or not actually).
If you want to stop the use of something, I don't actually recommend breaking someone's nose, but you do need to go at one person in any group who is bullying you - often the weakest one who will be affected the most strongly - and be really emotional and upset with your verbalizations toward them and how offensive they've been. Too much aggression risks bringing them to aggression, where the goal is to make them feel the effects of what they're doing. Making them cry means success. Which is better than breaking their nose.
*If they did ask, I would suggest a more general portrayal of stuttering instead of just mocking it.
But I use the slang word myself and don't feel slighted when others do.
However, if the word 'Karen' is supposed to somehow be pejorative about people who behave in a certain way, well it's hardly a great example. It's gender specific to begin with, so it's inaccurate if it's supposed to apply to both women and men, which is arguable anyway. Also why use a proper noun for an unacceptable behaviour, and thus stigmatise anyone called by that name? Shall we call rapists 'Mikes', after Mike Tyson, call murderers 'Freds' or 'Rosemarys' after the Wests? Shall we call tax-defrauders 'Jimmys' or 'Kens' (after Jimmy Carr and Ken Dodd)? Johns already have a proud and long history as customers of the Oldest Profession in the world. I know of a couple of guys done for child porn: anyone know any other 'Joes' out there, or warned their kids off the 'Robs' on the internet? So why should Karen get the special treatment?
I'm not saying lives depend on it! But proper nouns are tricky. They can detract from the real issue. Think Chinese 'flu.
Everyone agrees that the behaviour that has recently become denoted by the name "Karen" is worse than the hurt and insult to people who are actually named "Karen" for having their name turned in to a pretty horrible descriptor.
That's not the question. Here are two bad things. Thing A is much worse. Thing B is still a bad thing. It doesn't magically become an OK thing by standing next to a worse thing.
There are lots of names that are emblematic of particular groups of people. Many of them are pretty innocuous. Using "Joe" or "Juan" to call to mind a random white American or Mexican man doesn't insult people who are actually called "Joe" or "Juan" - there are no traits, beyond Hispanicness, associated with "Juan", and nothing beyond "generic (probably white) American in "Joe".
Tarquin, Rupert, and the like get used slightly pejoratively, but the strong association is with class, rather than particular behaviours. Again, actual Tarquins and Ruperts are unlikely to be hurt by being thought posh, because they probably are.
Are their other personal names whose use is anywhere like such a strong perjorative as "Karen"? I can't think of one offhand.
(There's also a difference, I think, between sharing a name with a particular TV / film / whatever character, where their (your) name is used to call to mind a particular person with that name, and this use of "Karen". We're not calling to mind a specific racist TV character who is called "Karen" with this use - it's referring specifically to the name "Karen" as the sort of name that entitled racists are likely to have.)
If a bunch of squaddies dealing with an actual twit junior officer (whose incompetence could, for example, get them killed) should want to call the twit that neither of us are bothered by it at all.
But you know, maybe white people shouldn't take up appropriating gallows humour from POC dealing with racists, because unlike the squaddies dealing with the 'Rupert', or the POC, we are not in a potentially dangerous one-down position and what is justified for others, may be just pretentious or rude for you or me.
The problem being encapsulated in shorthand by the name in the 'Karen' instance is a real one however and anyone who thinks it isn't or that it's OK to tell POC to shut the fuck up about the problems of systemic racism it encapsulates, needs to go read into the history of lynching. The idea of 'fragile' white femininity being menaced by Black people is a racist belief and racists act on it and weaponise it. It is not sexist to draw attention to this.
Someone acting in this way (like the woman who made the hoax call to the police on the Black bird watcher) is a racist and potentially a very callous or dangerous one. If the epithet 'Karen' helps draw attention to that then maybe its done its bit in raising consciousness of this, but I would still not be keen as a white person to appropriate the word and using it to someone's face as a white person who is not endangered strikes me as off. If they're being a massive racist and I need to tell them that, I would go with 'you're being a massive racist'.
The usage of ‘Karen’ I am hearing is about generically entitled behaviour, and certainly ‘punching down’, but it is not particularly associated with race. It certainly includes white on white interaction - bawling out a shop assistant, or the cashier at the petrol station. The way I’m hearing it used, it could in principal be the behaviour of a black woman, though I’ve not in fact encountered an instance where it is. Maybe there’s a pond difference in play.
Looking at some post further up thread, this is a gentle reminder to keep the tone and temperature Purgatorial. If it’s making you too angry, step away from the keyboard - or take it to Hell. Don’t get personal in Purgatory.
Host hat off
BroJames Purgatory Host
That's the appropriation I'm talking about and saying I don't think it's a good idea.
https://thegrio.com/2020/04/06/karen-slur-white-women-twitter/
It's a term that was developed by Black women to talk about a specific kind of racist behaviour against them. Now we have non - POC appropriating it, expanding the definition, and then attacking POC when they talk about it!
Bingo.
You brought racism into this.
I think you're collapsing all non-POC actors in the process into one group, and in consequence introducing an absurdity and inconsistency into your description that misrepresents the objectors.
A more accurate description would be:
Group 1 come up with a mostly anti-racist, but also mildly sexist, meme, to attack racist women.
Group 2 pick up on the sexist elements and use the same meme to attack women perceived as acting in any overly entitled way (including racism, but also including behaviour which is objectionable for non-racist reasons, and behaviour which men would generally not be criticised for).
Group 3 call group 2 on their sexism. Rightly so.
Of course it looks absurd if you see groups 2 and 3 as one entity because they are both mostly white, but that's just bad analysis. Considered separately, both groups are, if not rational, at least consistent.
Also "appropriation" is the wrong word to use for a meme. Memes replicate independently of the intentions of their propagators. That's basically what the word implies. No one has the right to complain if they put out a meme and it takes on a life of its own.
Geraldine
Bethany
Maaaargret
Blanche
Stella
I particularly like the last two.
I'll admit that of all the examples posted on the thread, this is the one that brings me closest to thinking 'Hm, maybe I am being a bit hypocritical', but I still don't think it's the same, because I've always seen Mary Sue used as the name of the character, whereas it is the author who is being accused of narcissism.
That is, Mary Sue is a name for a fictional character who was clearly written as wish-fulfilment for the author. Insofar as it implies that Mary Sue has any characteristics, those characteristics are positive ones. I've never seen Mary Sue used as the name of the author.
Yes, it’s not as bad as the racist behaviour that it’s originally supposed to be calling out, but it seems to me that is missing the point. Something is either a bad / unhelpful thing in its own right, or it’s not. The fact that there’s something worse (or even that it stems from something worse) is irrelevant. Otherwise the logic is next time someone has cause to complain about anything, they shouldn’t, because genocide is worse, or something.
You really have no reading comprehension to speak of. The whole point is that these are both bad things of the same nature, not of the same degree.
If you can't understand that without trying to make it into a competition then that is entirely your problem.
And you're the one who decided to escalate the bad behaviour of white women from acting entitled and wanting to speak to the manager into risking the lives of black men. Again, competition. Wanting to prove that my sister's name being used as an insult is not as important as Black Lives Matter. I never said it was. But you think that's it a competition, and you need to win.
And that of course is the whole source of my complaint. Left-wing friends who need to WIN rather than to be correct. Who don't operate on principles. I am not interested in WINNING, which is exactly why this pisses me off so much. I'm pissed off that people are so interested in WINNING that they're quite prepared to make my sister's name into collateral damage. Completely unnecessary collateral damage.
Black Lives Matter does not have to mean White Women's Names Don't Mean Shit.
The whole point is that if you think human beings are essentially worth respecting, you should not be picking and choosing which human beings are worthy of respect on the basis of things like gender or skin colour. What should matter is how people actually behave. Denigrating white people just because they are white is no better than denigrating black people because they are black. Lauding black people just because they are black is no better than lauding white people just because they are white.
Taking a name and using it pejoratively just because it's a name from white culture (it's Danish in origin by the way, simply a form of Katherine) is no better than taking a name and using it pejoratively just because it's a name from a non-white culture. That's all that I said. I stand by it. Of course I brought race into it, the whole damn point of the insult is to be racial. It's idiotic to try to use that as some sort of critique of my original post, and only demonstrates that you do not understand the post at all.
Maybe you should go ask them, instead of spending all your time trying to tell me why it's wrong to get offended. I have zero interest in your opinion on this because, again, I've witnessed what happens when you get offended.
And you're not actually mounting any kind of argument other than minimising the validity of my feelings. Maybe I should return the favour next time you're cranky.
BroJames, Purgatory Host
Two, calling a person a Karen is not racist. It is calling out the white privilege that a particular subset of white people have.
Three, the sexism involved is not on the user of the name, but in the dynamic that allows white women to play the victim card when actually being the aggressor. Actually, this one is a twofer as it tags both racism and sexism.
Four, it is not really ageist either. Young women typically do not have the confidence nor believability of the middle-age and older women are more likely to be fearful of immediate reprisal. So it is natural that the main body of the behaviour will be displayed by middle-aged women.
Again, when you brought race into it, you brought the comparison. I am not making this a competition, I am pointing out the fallacy in your case.
It would have been simple to say something to the effect of "Left-Wing people who claim to be about respect are causing disrespect to people called Karen by using that name as an insult."
By brining in the race, age and sexism intro it, you are elevating the problem to the level of those problems. Even taking out the potentially lethal result of the behaviour, calling these women Karens is not the same as any of those.
Soehow there has to be a way of de-escalating this constant rush to anger and still achieve the just society we are looking for.
Yes, how dare women actually have confidence as they get older...
The name is picked because it is associated with women of a certain race and age.
The rest... well that's nothing more than justifying stereotyping by claiming that this behaviour is correlated with that same demographic. Shock horror. Older women have more confidence than younger women. White people have more assertiveness than black people. No shit Sherlock.
But it's still stereotyping. It's still taking a name of women and not giving a damn whether or not they've actually engaged in the behaviour. And it's doing that because of their gender, age and race.
I really don't get you. You know why? Because you've gone and said how calling people insulting names is not okay, and yet here you are again and again and again lining up all these reasons why.
I'm done here, because all that's happened is my thesis has been proved. It's the most politically aware "woke" people that will keep providing justifications for utilising my sister's name as an insult. It's okay because she's from the privileged race and the privileged age group. And it's the people who spend a heck of a lot of their time upset at all the disadvantages of certain kinds of people who seem to feel quite comfortable about my sister having a disadvantage. Because it's not a big enough or important enough disadvantage to stop. Even though stopping it would be a heck of a lot simpler than most disadvantages.
Well, it's important to ME. And I'm going to keep asking people to stop doing such a damned unnecessary thing.