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 the UK most women called Karen will be in their 40’s and are more likely to be working class. So ageist and classist. And, as Karen is a woman’s name, most definitely sexist.
It would seem you read nothing of what I wrote in the bit just above.
AFAICT the references to Phillips as 'Shadow Karen Minister' came after she took to twitter to complain that her pizza delivery driver was late.
Jess Phillips is a somewhat prolific tweeter. Some of the things she tweets are important political issues, other things are "I just watched a game of tennis" or some other nonsense. "I ordered pizza two hours ago and it hasn't come yet" seems to fall into the latter category.
And it's really not deserving of being associated with the "Karen" meme (and doing so is probably sexist). The point of the "Karen" is that she is complaining, in her unreasonable, aggressive, entitled, racist manner, about something that is entirely normal, reasonable behaviour (black people having the audacity to be black in public, black people wanting to swim in the pool in their apartment complex, black man painting slogan on his own wall, black man asking her to leash her dog in the park where dogs must be leashed, etc.)
A pizza being two hours late is an actual problem. On the scale of problems, it's a rather minor one, but expecting your food not to be two hours late isn't unreasonable. It might be a bit tone-deaf to tweet a public whinge about crappy pizza service at the start of the Covid lockdown in the UK, but it wouldn't be at all unreasonable to complain at Pizza Hut about it - unless they'd told you when you ordered that they were swamped with orders, and it would take a long time to get around to you.
And with that in mind, I have to assume that calling Ms Phillips a "Karen" because of it is likely to be sexist.
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 the UK most women called Karen will be in their 40’s and are more likely to be working class. So ageist and classist. And, as Karen is a woman’s name, most definitely sexist.
It would seem you read nothing of what I wrote in the bit just above.
I read that bit. Then I pointed out that term had been hijacked to mean something else. And the new meaning is sexist, classist and ageist. You kind of acknowledge that but seem to be okay with people using it anyway. Because it's a differentiation rather than an ism. I think that's tosh but there you go.
I read that bit. Then I pointed out that term had been hijacked to mean something else. And the new meaning is sexist, classist and ageist. You kind of acknowledge that but seem to be okay with people using it anyway. Because it's a differentiation rather than an ism.
I'm not OK with it, just not particularly bothered. Partly because the exact same abuse was being done prior to association with the name Karen. I've always been against attacking women, not sure why I should be extra bothered when it hits white women.
ETA: Because somebody on the thread is bound to be stupid, I am not saying white women deserve sexism or don't deserve protection from it. Just saying the white part of it doesn't deserve extra attention.
It might be a bit tone-deaf to tweet a public whinge about crappy pizza service at the start of the Covid lockdown in the UK, but it wouldn't be at all unreasonable to complain at Pizza Hut about it
I think this is fine on the face of it, but is rather naïve when considering how platforms, celebrity and employment rights work in practice (one would think that a high profile member of a party that is at least notionally signed up a structural critique of some of these issues would have been aware of this).
@Tubbs we may have some pond differences then because typical Karens here would be suburban middle class with pretensions to being upper class.
That may explain a few things. Thank you for explaining. Would I be right in assuming the age thing is the same?
Similar enough, I'd say. There's definitely Becky who is in her 20s and fusses and whines uselessly. Then Karen, I would have said 40s-50s. I asked the husband and he thinks 40s is a pretty good estimate. So yeah, age is similar enough.
I'm not OK with it, just not particularly bothered. Partly because the exact same abuse was being done prior to association with the name Karen. I've always been against attacking women, not sure why I should be extra bothered when it hits white women.
Thanks for elucidating that bit, @lilbuddha . You just hit what's bothering me: Feels to me that society is much more bothered when it's white women. When it's "angry black women" standing up for their own rights, I never saw much sympathy or concern about stereotyping people.
I'm not OK with it, just not particularly bothered. Partly because the exact same abuse was being done prior to association with the name Karen. I've always been against attacking women, not sure why I should be extra bothered when it hits white women.
Thanks for elucidating that bit, @lilbuddha . You just hit what's bothering me: Feels to me that society is much more bothered when it's white women. When it's "angry black women" standing up for their own rights, I never saw much sympathy or concern about stereotyping people.
This.
And whilst I know Orfeo is not a white supremacist, is this really the time to be nitpicking every anti-racist critique from Tolkien to Karen ?
There is probably a limited window of time in which the blm protests, and the conversations they have spawned, will be able to influence any change fast - before it all gets eaten by the news cycle.
I feel we should not be taking up that space with comparatively minor problems.
When it's "angry black women" standing up for their own rights, I never saw much sympathy or concern about stereotyping people.
Is that a stereotype? I've not encountered a stereotype about angry black women, but I don't do social media much, so a lot of that stuff passes me by.
If you're saying that black women get racist and sexist abuse, then sure, I agree that they do. In the UK, Diane Abbott would be a prime example. In general, I don't much rate her as a politician, and there was the famous car crash interview where she randomly guessed at numbers that were wrong by several orders of magnitude and not internally consistent, but there's no arguing with the fact that she was on the receiving end of racist and sexist abuse on a regular basis, or that she got given a lot more shit than white male politicians who were even worse.
And there are any number of typical black names that get used to denote black people / black women, and they're usually used in a racist way ('cause once you start talking about "black people" or "black women" as a generic group, it's likely that they next thing you're going to say is going to be sexist or racist) but I'm not familiar with a name that has been used in anything like the way that "Karen" gets used.
And again, inventing some arbitrary LaShonda or something as an emblematic black woman isn't saying anything particular about LaShondas - it's making the association LaShonda -> black, and then probably going on to be racist about black women. In that usage, it's the same as Tarquin and Rupert being posh white men. Whereas "Karen" isn't a stand-in for a generic white woman - she's specifically an obnoxious entitled racist.
@Leorning Cniht Yes it is. Thanks for asking* and giving me the chance to provide afew links. I will stop there before I annoy the hosts, but it's a trope I regularly hear about from some of my strong Black female friends and people I follow. They are regularly dismissed as "just another angry Black woman" I hear. Or they feel they have to moderate themselves in a way I don't so that they don't come across as the angry black woman.
*Since there is a lot going on, let me clarify that this is not sarcastic!
Thanks - that's not a stereotype I had enountered.
I do not know your life, but I'd guess you have, but probably didn't notice because you are white. Not that white people cannot notice, but they have no impetus to notice.
Out of idle curiosity, I looked up the age profiles of Karens in Scotland. I don't know how to check the UK profile, but I suspect it would be similar.
Between 1855 (start of official registration) and 1950, there were only 250 girls named Karen. That jumped to 3000 between 1950-1960, and then leapt up to 17, 200 between 1960-1970. It fell back to 11,000 between 1970-1980, and has declined sharply since.
Almost half of all Karens ever born in Scotland were born between 1960 and 1970, and well over 2/3 were born between 1960 and 1980.
The stereotypical Scottish Karen will be middle-aged.
Last year there was only child given Karen as her first name, though several dozen had Karen as a middle name, possibly because it is their grandmother's name. I would put money on there being no Karens born in 2020 because a) it has fallen out of fashion and b) the name has become toxic.
@Leorning Cniht Yes it is. Thanks for asking* and giving me the chance to provide afew links. I will stop there before I annoy the hosts, but it's a trope I regularly hear about from some of my strong Black female friends and people I follow. They are regularly dismissed as "just another angry Black woman" I hear. Or they feel they have to moderate themselves in a way I don't so that they don't come across as the angry black woman.
*Since there is a lot going on, let me clarify that this is not sarcastic!
Yes, I was just reading Reni Eddo-Lodge's bookWhy I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race and it was strong on this - how Black women get stereotyped as angry no matter what they do and basically if they in any way differentiate themselves from a doormat, then God help them. It had some stinging stuff on white feminism too, failing to address the much worse reality for Black women. Anything white middle aged feminists like me are putting up with is a fraction of what our Black colleagues get heaped on them.
Naming baby girls Karen peaked in the US in 1965, so "Karen" is in her 50s here.
My recently laid-off co-worker is a 5'11" black woman with a low voice. I lost count of the times in the 17 years we worked together that white people thought she was angry when she was just speaking.
And whilst I know Orfeo is not a white supremacist, is this really the time to be nitpicking every anti-racist critique from Tolkien to Karen ?
Whilst you've seen me pick at 2 "anti-racist critiques", the second of which has utterly ceased to be an anti-racist critique, is that really any basis for assuming this means I would pick at every anti-racist critique?
Seriously. What is "from" Tolkien "to" Karen about? What the heck do you think is in between? Some invisible collection of what I'm saying in the rest of my life that you can miraculously infer from my contribution to 2 threads?
The idea that because anti-racist critique is in principle valid, EVERY supposed anti-racist critique must NOT be criticised just does my head in. It's nothing more than positive stereotyping, which isn't much better than negative stereotyping.
I privately pointed out to you what I'm now going to publicly point out: that me criticising people for use of the name Karen is not an outlier. I've criticised and called out friends and lost friends for implying that all Muslims are terrorists. I've explained lots of times to people why All Lives Matter is not appropriate. I've criticised attempts to link people of Chinese descent to coronavirus.
Drawing unjustified inferences about white people is no better, and I'm not going to expect less of people just because they think they're "punching up". Accuracy of target is still important, and I find it completely bizarre that folk somehow think that collateral white damage is more acceptable than collateral damage for people of colour.
How people can rightly complain about the bad deal given to black people, but then act as if the solution is to give the same bad deal to white people, is utterly beyond me. I always thought a commitment to equality was supposed to mean giving everyone the same better deal, but over time I'm beginning to learn that to some folk "equality" means being prejudiced and unfair and irrational in more directions to even the score. As if human rights and respect are some kind of zero sum game.
Let me tell you a short anecdote about myself to illustrate just how much the idea that which 'side' you're on should affect how things work mystifies me.
Quite some years ago, my sister and I went to a rugby union match. We had seats in one corner, a fair way back.
At one stage in the game, we BOTH saw an incident more than halfway across the field where a player on the home team stomped at an opponent's head. Because we both turned to each other and basically asked "did I really just see one of our players try to stomp on someone's head?"
The referee saw it too. The player was sent off. Most of the home crowd booed. We did not. The sending off was completely justified.
And the reason I even remember this, probably 20 years or more later, is because I was completely astounded at the booing.
To me, the notion that whether or not a player should be sent off for stomping on an opponent's head is affected by which team they are on is insane. But time and again in life I find my view is not a common one. Apparently, a lot of people think that breaking the rules is more acceptable as a means to an end if you're on the correct team.
Orfeo, I like your contributions and consider you to be one of the most interesting and thoughtful posters on the Ship. However, I think sometimes you come off as having read the news, drank a cup of coffee, snorted a line of coke, then logged on to the forums.shipoffools.com to see who needs their assess kicked.
Thank you, @Doc Tor. I find the meme both sexist and ageist, and I’ve noticed far too many men gleefully taking it up because it’s a suddenly acceptable way for them to shut down uppity women. (No one finds it too pushy for men to ask for the manager, because, well, they’re MEN, and thus auto-entitled. Fuck that.)
Oh, and I do know a Karen who is not a “Karen,” who is having a hard time with all this crap. The whole thing is unpleasant - and sexist, and ageist. If you mean “racist,” SAY racist*. If you men “controlling,” SAY controlling. But stop smearing women as a group.
* I hadn’t heard that allegation until quite recently.
And whilst I know Orfeo is not a white supremacist, is this really the time to be nitpicking every anti-racist critique from Tolkien to Karen ?
Whilst you've seen me pick at 2 "anti-racist critiques", the second of which has utterly ceased to be an anti-racist critique, is that really any basis for assuming this means I would pick at every anti-racist critique?
Seriously. What is "from" Tolkien "to" Karen about? What the heck do you think is in between? Some invisible collection of what I'm saying in the rest of my life that you can miraculously infer from my contribution to 2 threads?
The idea that because anti-racist critique is in principle valid, EVERY supposed anti-racist critique must NOT be criticised just does my head in. It's nothing more than positive stereotyping, which isn't much better than negative stereotyping.
I privately pointed out to you what I'm now going to publicly point out: that me criticising people for use of the name Karen is not an outlier. I've criticised and called out friends and lost friends for implying that all Muslims are terrorists. I've explained lots of times to people why All Lives Matter is not appropriate. I've criticised attempts to link people of Chinese descent to coronavirus.
Drawing unjustified inferences about white people is no better,
Hold on there. The original use of Karen is pointing out white privilege. And that sure as fuck is not racism. There is no racism in calling a person a Karen, even in the fucked up use Tubbs describes.
And fuck the comparison of racism towards white people with racism towards minorities.
Racism towards white people is not a good thing, but it doesn't cost them jobs, healthcare, better treatment by police, promotions, etc. It isn't a quality and length of life issue.
It might be bad if I yell at someone, but that doesn't put it in the same category as beating them with a cricket bat. A lack of proportionality is not making your case any stronger.
Adding: I believe that you stand up against overt racism and I think that is a good thing.
I do not agree that calling someone a Karen is as you describe it.
The original use. Hence why I said "utterly ceased".
And I'm hardly the first person on the thread to point this out. If you think my predominantly white, predominantly male friends are thoroughly in keeping with what black American shop assistants were up to, then it seems lots of us don't agree with you.
Someone else on the Ship used to be fond of saying that etymology is not meaning. The problem with shorthand is when people forget what the shorthand was supposed to originally mean.
Plus your reasoning is odd. I didn't actually say what you claim I'm saying. But not even you could deny that Karen is a term directed at white women. And my point is that when it's not used in a legitimate way, but as a kind of indiscriminate way of attacking white women of a particular age group any time they make a complaint about anything, that's not okay just because the targets are white.
If you mean “racist,” SAY racist*. If you mean “controlling,” SAY controlling. But stop smearing women as a group.
You don't need my sister's name as a supposed shorthand for bad behaviour. We already have far better, far more accurate words for bad behaviour. Use them.
I think I said that at least 3 pages ago, so why the hell anyone continues to feel the need to explain how justifiable it was to appropriate (yes, I used that word) the name Karen for some other purpose, I don't understand. And even if I accepted for the sake of argument that the original appropriate WAS for a suitable purpose, well the meme has long since broken those bounds.
The original use of Karen is pointing out white privilege.
No. The original use of Karen is as a name for female children, originally in Denmark, as one of the many variants of the name Katherine.
Also, quite independently, as the name of a people living in Myanmar, though I believe the emphasis is on the second syllable
If you're going to invoke original use, invoking something that is far younger than my sister isn't really convincing. The whole reason this thread exists is because the original use is not what you're claiming to be the original use.
Orfeo, I like your contributions and consider you to be one of the most interesting and thoughtful posters on the Ship. However, I think sometimes you come off as having read the news, drank a cup of coffee, snorted a line of coke, then logged on to the forums.shipoffools.com to see who needs their assess kicked.
Hold on there. The original use of Karen is pointing out white privilege. And that sure as fuck is not racism. There is no racism in calling a person a Karen, even in the fucked up use Tubbs describes.
And fuck the comparison of racism towards white people with racism towards minorities.
Racism towards white people is not a good thing, but it doesn't cost them jobs, healthcare, better treatment by police, promotions, etc. It isn't a quality and length of life issue.
It might be bad if I yell at someone, but that doesn't put it in the same category as beating them with a cricket bat. A lack of proportionality is not making your case any stronger.
Two further comments:
1. It seems to me that you fundamentally confuse the question of whether it's okay to point out white privilege (yes of course it is) with the question of whether it therefore doesn't matter what means is used to point out white privilege. Or whether every time a given means is used, it's still actually being used to point out white privilege.
2. You're bringing up proportionality again. I don't understand your universe where a wrong is less wrong because it's not as wrong as some other wrong. Why are you keeping score? Is this not exactly what I've said I'm against?
I'm simply not interested in a context like this in acting as if saying something is wrong is invalidated or diminished because of the existence of some other wrong thing, or that the thing is less wrong if we can find some other bigger problem. It's whataboutism, and it's a stupid game because we can always keep going to find some other bigger problem until we're debating whether we're allowed to care about infant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa before we've sorted out climate change - both of which make black American retail workers pointing out the privilege of white female customers seem ridiculously trivial in comparison.
So stop comparing for degree, and stop bringing proportionality into it every damn time I compare for kind. It's like saying that a blueberry can't really be a fruit because grapefruits exist.
There is probably a limited window of time in which the blm protests, and the conversations they have spawned, will be able to influence any change fast - before it all gets eaten by the news cycle.
There is probably a limited window of time in which the blm protests, and the conversations they have spawned, will be able to influence any change fast - before it all gets eaten by the news cycle.
Because this, hence proportionality matters.
Okay, so... what has this got to do with white men calling uppity women Karen and discussions about Tolkien?
This is what mystifies me about your complaint that I'm picking apart "every" critique of racism. The idea that my commentary on either of those matters gives you the slightest bit of information on what I think about Black Lives Matter, whereas what I'd said previously on a thread directly talking about the death of George Floyd doesn't, just seems really weird.
Your idea of 'proportionality' really does seem to be that it doesn't matter if we do it right, so long as we do it. You'll just accept smaller collateral damage in pursuit of a bigger goal, is that it?
Do you have the same view of #MeToo? Is it okay if men who didn't, on a calm sober assessment, do anything wrong get caught up while we are finally pursuing men who have abused their power?
Facebook's motto was famously "move fast and break things". Might be okay when it comes to companies and computer programs. I'm not thrilled with applying it to people.
1. It seems to me that you fundamentally confuse the question of whether it's okay to point out white privilege (yes of course it is) with the question of whether it therefore doesn't matter what means is used to point out white privilege. Or whether every time a given means is used, it's still actually being used to point out white privilege.
There is a long and bitter history of "white moderates" attempting to police how people of colour highlight and challenge their oppression. Letter from a Birmingham jail.
1. It seems to me that you fundamentally confuse the question of whether it's okay to point out white privilege (yes of course it is) with the question of whether it therefore doesn't matter what means is used to point out white privilege. Or whether every time a given means is used, it's still actually being used to point out white privilege.
There is a long and bitter history of "white moderates" attempting to police how people of colour highlight and challenge their oppression. Letter from a Birmingham jail.
There is apparently just as long a history of people reasoning that if something was originally done by people of colour for a justifiable reason, it can then be done forevermore, by anybody of any race who invokes people of colour, without checking whether the justifiable reason continues to be applicable.
I don't know how many times I have to point out that the great majority of people I've called out on the use of "Karen" are white, and none of them were of African descent. Apparently it's at least 3. Though I'm beginning to lose count.
But even if they were people of colour, the notion that EVERY TIME someone uses Karen as an insult we must assume that it's okay and appropriate because it was done by a person of colour is just completely nuts.
I've learned over time (and partly through training) that most people are spectacularly bad at switching between abstract, systemic thinking and individual cases.
This is why, when you get 2 reports into the same police shooting of a black man, and one report says that the shooting was justified and the other report says that there is a cultural problem leading to black men being disproportionately shot by police officers, most folks think the reports are contradictory and use whichever one they prefer to negate the other.
But the 2 reports were not contradictory. To me it's blindingly obvious they weren't. And yes, sometimes I get on my keyboard and yell at the world because living in a world where people cannot hold different layers of categorisation independently in their heads at the same time is absolutely bloody maddening and exhausting.
There is a long and bitter history of "white moderates" attempting to police how people of colour highlight and challenge their oppression. Letter from a Birmingham jail.
Of course the really funny thing is that I don't think this letter says remotely what you think it says.
Because it doesn't say there are no limits and it's a free for all. It actually contains a great deal of discussion of just laws and unjust laws, and the unjust application of just laws. It talks about nonviolent action being preferable to black nationalist ideologies.
In other words, it contains an enormous amount of decision making about exactly how to challenge oppression.
Nor does it even come close to saying that white people should say nothing. It's a discussion of how there were other things that they could have said and done.
And of course I now know it contains this fabulous bit:
"Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends."
And here you are, complaining about policing means. As if they don't matter. No. What the letter actually says is that both means and ends matter.
So now, with that quote in mind, go back and read the point of mine that you responded to. I'm feeling pretty good about it myself right now.
There is probably a limited window of time in which the blm protests, and the conversations they have spawned, will be able to influence any change fast - before it all gets eaten by the news cycle.
Because this, hence proportionality matters.
Okay, so... what has this got to do with white men calling uppity women Karen and discussions about Tolkien?
Bandwidth, it is not unlike whatterboutry.
This is what mystifies me about your complaint that I'm picking apart "every" critique of racism. The idea that my commentary on either of those matters gives you the slightest bit of information on what I think about Black Lives Matter, whereas what I'd said previously on a thread directly talking about the death of George Floyd doesn't, just seems really weird.
I’m going to match your degree of literal minded pedantry here, and point out I haven’t said anything about what you think about blm.
Your idea of 'proportionality' really does seem to be that it doesn't matter if we do it right, so long as we do it. You'll just accept smaller collateral damage in pursuit of a bigger goal, is that it?
Do you have the same view of #MeToo? Is it okay if men who didn't, on a calm sober assessment, do anything wrong get caught up while we are finally pursuing men who have abused their power?
No, I think it is somewhat similar to jumping into the #metoo discourse to state notallmen, or sometimes men are falsely accused. #metoo doesn’t suggest allmen nor that it is ok for men to be falsely accused.
With regard to Karen. Shorthands exist, it is not ideal but I do not accept it is a serious harm. Bullying is a serious harm. It is possible to consistently hold both these beliefs.
It seems to me you are epically missing the point, and getting enraged about the wrong target.
Firstly, weaponising white privilege is a very dangerous problem. People’s attempt to name, describe, identify that are important to combatting it - as a widely distributed unled social discourse, that is going to be imperfect and inconsistent. Arguing the toss about the exact label undercuts this and to little effect.
If people were jeering at your sister because she is called Karen - then the problem there is people who harass and bully.
Names with negative connotations are ridiculously common, and fluctuate wildly.
Non-exhaustive list for the U.K.
Richard - dick - penis
Frances/is - fanny - vulva
John - penis
Andrew - Andy - slur related to Prince Andrew
Tom - Uncle Tom
William - willy - penis
Mary - Mary Sue
Pollyanna - naive optimist
Various women’s names as forms of men’s names - insufficiently feminine
Sharon & Tracey - low class
Kevin - low class
Derek / Terry - boring
Margaret - reminds people of Margaret Thatcher
Nigel - ineffectual
Rodney - plonker
Hilda, Ivy, Matilda, Audrey - old
Not including how we usually have negative associations where we have known some one we didn’t like with that name. Lots of that list will have started with characters in stories, tv sitcoms etc.
Most adults have the maturity to both know this, not taunt people on this basis, and to barely care.
If white men are calling women Karen because they are appropriately assertive, the problem is with their misogyny not the name Karen.
Someone saying, oh I’m sorry didn’t know your sister was called Karen - and then carefully stating to the next woman they want to insult - You are an angry mannish fool who should know your place - would not be any less of a problem.
There is a long and bitter history of "white moderates" attempting to police how people of colour highlight and challenge their oppression. Letter from a Birmingham jail.
Although, as has been noted several times on this thread, the meme started as a means of people of colour highlighting and challenging their oppression the current popularity (as in, frequency of use rather than people generally liking it) of the meme is commonly associated with white men criticising women for being outspoken and not knowing their place. That's a big shift in use. If it had remained a term used by people of colour to describe a small subset of privileged women acting unreasonably it would have been ignored and we wouldn't be having this discussion as the vast majority of people wouldn't be aware of it (I guess that's an aspect of the racism in our society, that instances of people of colour talking about their experience don't get widely reported including the ways they describe that experience).
#metoo doesn’t suggest allmen nor that it is ok for men to be falsely accused.
I agree. The fact that you and I agree does not mean, though, that nobody ever attempts to jump on the bandwagon. To use the means of #metoo to pursue ends that are completely different to the envisaged ends of #metoo.
And this is why I get so alarmed by the line of thinking that seems to say that if you invoke the right 'thing', it becomes beyond questioning. That if a black person refers to racial prejudice as the cause of something, they simply cannot be countered. That black people can't be either mistaken or lying or misinterpret or misunderstand. That women who invoke #metoo cannot be mistaken or lying or misinterpret or misunderstand.
Or that they are somehow immune to making bad decisions in general.
I see far too many people leaping from the reasoning that Black Lives Matter is right in principle, or that #metoo is right in principle, to just assuming that every supposed instance of those principles is what it claims to be. Honestly, it comes across as a kind of fetishization of women or people of colour. We switch from saying that they are lesser to saying that they are perfect.
And I say this as someone who is thoroughly in favour of affirmative action, of doing things to consciously redress existing imbalances rather than claiming that "merit" will just take care of it in the presence of unconscious biases.
What I have a problem with is just chucking out "merit" altogether. Saying that we need to listen to people of colour is not the same as saying that we need to listen to a person because they are a person of colour.
Lots of people seem to believe that "it's wrong to shoot a man because he is black" means exactly the same thing as "it's wrong to shoot a black man". It does not.
Firstly, weaponising white privilege is a very dangerous problem. People’s attempt to name, describe, identify that are important to combatting it - as a widely distributed unled social discourse, that is going to be imperfect and inconsistent. Arguing the toss about the exact label undercuts this and to little effect.
And this is the kind of fetishization I'm talking about. You seem to go from saying how it's important to attempt to name, describe and identify white privilege to saying we shouldn't care whether the attempt was a good one, or whether it was absolutely shit.
Whoops, we took a female name and made it a shorthand for white privilege. Ah well, who cares whether that was a good idea, we were trying to do something important so that excuses any kind of assessment of how well we succeeded at it, or whether we just introduced another way to attack women.
The ends were good, so we must not criticise the means. We must not assess whether the means actually worked, or whether there were side-effects.
Damn right I'm undercutting the means. That's the whole point.
Really, the whole thread can be boiled down to this:
I have a problem with turning my sister's name into an insult. Yes, the fact that it's my sister's name is what made me notice more than I would other instances of turning a name into an insult.
But I said that, to me, the principle against turning a typically northern European name into an insult is the same principle against turning a typically Chinese name, a typically Italian name, a typically Muslim name etc etc into an insult.
Whereupon various people try to tell me that the ends of combatting white privilege somehow turns the means of using a stereotyping insulting name into something acceptable. The ends purified the means somehow. Even when the means aren't actually used for the purpose of combatting white privilege...
And/or the existence of even worse means of pursuing bad ends negates any problem with pursuing good ends with poor means.
And then, someone helpfully supplies me with an MLK Jr quote about how important it is to have both good ends and good means.
At which point I can articulate just how fundamentally stupid it is for people to keep responding to my criticism of means by talking about ends.
The bit you missed about MLK's letter is that it's not for white moderates to tell people of colour that their means of non-violent protest are wrong. Whatever action people of colour take will be deemed too aggressive, the wrong time, too impatient. People of colour are more than capable of managing their own liberation without white moderates telling them they're doing it wrong.
Incidentally when I've seen it used by white folk it's usually by retail workers complaining about the way that some people weaponise US corporate culture to bully them.
For the record I wouldn't use it myself, for many of the reasons outlined. I'm not going to wade into tone policing how other folk deal with their oppression.
The bit you missed about MLK's letter is that it's not for white moderates to tell people of colour that their means of non-violent protest are wrong.
Oh for goodness' sake, this is so simplistic and juvenile.
I didn't miss it. What I did, unlike you, is not assume that a statement about MLK's particular situation should be elevated into a universal principle. Especially not when it doesn't fit with the rest of the letter.
He doesn't simply say that he should not have been criticised. He answers the criticism. It wouldn't have taken such a long letter to say "shut up and don't tell me what to do".
Honestly, this just reminds me of the way people read the Bible. Badly.
The fact that all YOU can get out of the letter is "he told those white moderates off" says far more about you than it does about the letter. Do you really think the only important thing in there is the race of the writer and the race of the recipients? It's a fabulous piece of writing and all you've done is reduce it to "white people aren't allowed to say things to black people".
The bit you missed about MLK's letter is that it's not for white moderates to tell people of colour that their means of non-violent protest are wrong.
Oh for goodness' sake, this is so simplistic and juvenile.
I didn't miss it. What I did, unlike you, is not assume that a statement about MLK's particular situation should be elevated into a universal principle. Especially not when it doesn't fit with the rest of the letter.
He doesn't simply say that he should not have been criticised. He answers the criticism. It wouldn't have taken such a long letter to say "shut up and don't tell me what to do".
Honestly, this just reminds me of the way people read the Bible. Badly.
The fact that all YOU can get out of the letter is "he told those white moderates off" says far more about you than it does about the letter. Do you really think the only important thing in there is the race of the writer and the race of the recipients? It's a fabulous piece of writing and all you've done is reduce it to "white people aren't allowed to say things to black people".
Which seems to be exactly the way you read my post. Badly. Black folk don't need you to be the white saviour and tell them how they're confronting racism the wrong way.
The bit you missed about MLK's letter is that it's not for white moderates to tell people of colour that their means of non-violent protest are wrong.
Oh for goodness' sake, this is so simplistic and juvenile.
I didn't miss it. What I did, unlike you, is not assume that a statement about MLK's particular situation should be elevated into a universal principle. Especially not when it doesn't fit with the rest of the letter.
He doesn't simply say that he should not have been criticised. He answers the criticism. It wouldn't have taken such a long letter to say "shut up and don't tell me what to do".
Honestly, this just reminds me of the way people read the Bible. Badly.
The fact that all YOU can get out of the letter is "he told those white moderates off" says far more about you than it does about the letter. Do you really think the only important thing in there is the race of the writer and the race of the recipients? It's a fabulous piece of writing and all you've done is reduce it to "white people aren't allowed to say things to black people".
Which seems to be exactly the way you read my post. Badly. Black folk don't need you to be the white saviour and tell them how they're confronting racism the wrong way.
I never said they did. But you've got this false dichotomy in your head where white saviour and white idiot who must not say anything are the only two options. You've got a zero sum game there, where either white people speak or black people speak. Never both.
I'm so sick of this fucking contest. Really. I'm so sick of people continuing to argue that the only way for black people to be heard is for white people to say nothing. I'm so sick to my very bones of people using race as a proxy for analysis, intelligence, rationality and a whole bunch of other qualities that, last time I looked, we didn't think were related to skin tone, when the whole fucking point is to stop associating those qualities with whiteness. And people just go and act as if the solution to that is to associate those qualities with blackness. When it's exactly the same fucking kind of error.
If you're stupid enough to believe that MLK Jr's message is that white people must not say anything, then I'm not stupid enough to continue trying to tell you otherwise after this, especially not while I'm trying to cook dinner.
But nowhere in that letter does he say "you shouldn't have said anything". In fact he says the exact fucking opposite: here is what white people should have said.
Just go and read the letter you're purportedly so fond of, and I hope that you might eventually notice how much time it spends explaining and rationalising rather than saying "shut up". It's fantastic writing. By a black man. But it's not fantastic because he was black. It's fantastic because he was a great writer.
I can't help wondering what you would have thought if MLK Jr wrote to any black folk who were not on board with this methods. That would have just done your head in. Because according to you, it's simply impossible for him to have written to a black person to explain why he was breaking unjust laws.
There is a long and bitter history of "white moderates" attempting to police how people of colour highlight and challenge their oppression. Letter from a Birmingham jail.
Actual black people (who are at risk of harm from the behaviour encapsulated in the "Karen" stereotype) get a partial pass from me. I still don't think it's reasonable to appropriate someone's name as descriptor of vile behaviour, but the amount of racist nonsense black people get to deal with on a regular basis provides a mitigating circumstance. Like orfeo, though, the majority of people I see posting "Karen" memes etc. aren't black. They're middle-class white liberals (mostly middle-class white liberal women) using the meme to call out their middle-class white racist neighbours. I don't give them a pass.
Comments
Jess Phillips is a somewhat prolific tweeter. Some of the things she tweets are important political issues, other things are "I just watched a game of tennis" or some other nonsense. "I ordered pizza two hours ago and it hasn't come yet" seems to fall into the latter category.
And it's really not deserving of being associated with the "Karen" meme (and doing so is probably sexist). The point of the "Karen" is that she is complaining, in her unreasonable, aggressive, entitled, racist manner, about something that is entirely normal, reasonable behaviour (black people having the audacity to be black in public, black people wanting to swim in the pool in their apartment complex, black man painting slogan on his own wall, black man asking her to leash her dog in the park where dogs must be leashed, etc.)
A pizza being two hours late is an actual problem. On the scale of problems, it's a rather minor one, but expecting your food not to be two hours late isn't unreasonable. It might be a bit tone-deaf to tweet a public whinge about crappy pizza service at the start of the Covid lockdown in the UK, but it wouldn't be at all unreasonable to complain at Pizza Hut about it - unless they'd told you when you ordered that they were swamped with orders, and it would take a long time to get around to you.
And with that in mind, I have to assume that calling Ms Phillips a "Karen" because of it is likely to be sexist.
I read that bit. Then I pointed out that term had been hijacked to mean something else. And the new meaning is sexist, classist and ageist. You kind of acknowledge that but seem to be okay with people using it anyway. Because it's a differentiation rather than an ism. I think that's tosh but there you go.
That may explain a few things. Thank you for explaining. Would I be right in assuming the age thing is the same?
ETA: Because somebody on the thread is bound to be stupid, I am not saying white women deserve sexism or don't deserve protection from it. Just saying the white part of it doesn't deserve extra attention.
I think this is fine on the face of it, but is rather naïve when considering how platforms, celebrity and employment rights work in practice (one would think that a high profile member of a party that is at least notionally signed up a structural critique of some of these issues would have been aware of this).
Thanks for elucidating that bit, @lilbuddha . You just hit what's bothering me: Feels to me that society is much more bothered when it's white women. When it's "angry black women" standing up for their own rights, I never saw much sympathy or concern about stereotyping people.
This.
And whilst I know Orfeo is not a white supremacist, is this really the time to be nitpicking every anti-racist critique from Tolkien to Karen ?
There is probably a limited window of time in which the blm protests, and the conversations they have spawned, will be able to influence any change fast - before it all gets eaten by the news cycle.
I feel we should not be taking up that space with comparatively minor problems.
Is that a stereotype? I've not encountered a stereotype about angry black women, but I don't do social media much, so a lot of that stuff passes me by.
If you're saying that black women get racist and sexist abuse, then sure, I agree that they do. In the UK, Diane Abbott would be a prime example. In general, I don't much rate her as a politician, and there was the famous car crash interview where she randomly guessed at numbers that were wrong by several orders of magnitude and not internally consistent, but there's no arguing with the fact that she was on the receiving end of racist and sexist abuse on a regular basis, or that she got given a lot more shit than white male politicians who were even worse.
And there are any number of typical black names that get used to denote black people / black women, and they're usually used in a racist way ('cause once you start talking about "black people" or "black women" as a generic group, it's likely that they next thing you're going to say is going to be sexist or racist) but I'm not familiar with a name that has been used in anything like the way that "Karen" gets used.
And again, inventing some arbitrary LaShonda or something as an emblematic black woman isn't saying anything particular about LaShondas - it's making the association LaShonda -> black, and then probably going on to be racist about black women. In that usage, it's the same as Tarquin and Rupert being posh white men. Whereas "Karen" isn't a stand-in for a generic white woman - she's specifically an obnoxious entitled racist.
*Since there is a lot going on, let me clarify that this is not sarcastic!
Thanks - that's not a stereotype I had enountered.
Between 1855 (start of official registration) and 1950, there were only 250 girls named Karen. That jumped to 3000 between 1950-1960, and then leapt up to 17, 200 between 1960-1970. It fell back to 11,000 between 1970-1980, and has declined sharply since.
Almost half of all Karens ever born in Scotland were born between 1960 and 1970, and well over 2/3 were born between 1960 and 1980.
The stereotypical Scottish Karen will be middle-aged.
Last year there was only child given Karen as her first name, though several dozen had Karen as a middle name, possibly because it is their grandmother's name. I would put money on there being no Karens born in 2020 because a) it has fallen out of fashion and b) the name has become toxic.
Yes, I was just reading Reni Eddo-Lodge's bookWhy I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race and it was strong on this - how Black women get stereotyped as angry no matter what they do and basically if they in any way differentiate themselves from a doormat, then God help them. It had some stinging stuff on white feminism too, failing to address the much worse reality for Black women. Anything white middle aged feminists like me are putting up with is a fraction of what our Black colleagues get heaped on them.
My recently laid-off co-worker is a 5'11" black woman with a low voice. I lost count of the times in the 17 years we worked together that white people thought she was angry when she was just speaking.
Whilst you've seen me pick at 2 "anti-racist critiques", the second of which has utterly ceased to be an anti-racist critique, is that really any basis for assuming this means I would pick at every anti-racist critique?
Seriously. What is "from" Tolkien "to" Karen about? What the heck do you think is in between? Some invisible collection of what I'm saying in the rest of my life that you can miraculously infer from my contribution to 2 threads?
The idea that because anti-racist critique is in principle valid, EVERY supposed anti-racist critique must NOT be criticised just does my head in. It's nothing more than positive stereotyping, which isn't much better than negative stereotyping.
I privately pointed out to you what I'm now going to publicly point out: that me criticising people for use of the name Karen is not an outlier. I've criticised and called out friends and lost friends for implying that all Muslims are terrorists. I've explained lots of times to people why All Lives Matter is not appropriate. I've criticised attempts to link people of Chinese descent to coronavirus.
Drawing unjustified inferences about white people is no better, and I'm not going to expect less of people just because they think they're "punching up". Accuracy of target is still important, and I find it completely bizarre that folk somehow think that collateral white damage is more acceptable than collateral damage for people of colour.
How people can rightly complain about the bad deal given to black people, but then act as if the solution is to give the same bad deal to white people, is utterly beyond me. I always thought a commitment to equality was supposed to mean giving everyone the same better deal, but over time I'm beginning to learn that to some folk "equality" means being prejudiced and unfair and irrational in more directions to even the score. As if human rights and respect are some kind of zero sum game.
Quite some years ago, my sister and I went to a rugby union match. We had seats in one corner, a fair way back.
At one stage in the game, we BOTH saw an incident more than halfway across the field where a player on the home team stomped at an opponent's head. Because we both turned to each other and basically asked "did I really just see one of our players try to stomp on someone's head?"
The referee saw it too. The player was sent off. Most of the home crowd booed. We did not. The sending off was completely justified.
And the reason I even remember this, probably 20 years or more later, is because I was completely astounded at the booing.
To me, the notion that whether or not a player should be sent off for stomping on an opponent's head is affected by which team they are on is insane. But time and again in life I find my view is not a common one. Apparently, a lot of people think that breaking the rules is more acceptable as a means to an end if you're on the correct team.
Oh, and I do know a Karen who is not a “Karen,” who is having a hard time with all this crap. The whole thing is unpleasant - and sexist, and ageist. If you mean “racist,” SAY racist*. If you men “controlling,” SAY controlling. But stop smearing women as a group.
* I hadn’t heard that allegation until quite recently.
And fuck the comparison of racism towards white people with racism towards minorities.
Racism towards white people is not a good thing, but it doesn't cost them jobs, healthcare, better treatment by police, promotions, etc. It isn't a quality and length of life issue.
It might be bad if I yell at someone, but that doesn't put it in the same category as beating them with a cricket bat. A lack of proportionality is not making your case any stronger.
I do not agree that calling someone a Karen is as you describe it.
And I'm hardly the first person on the thread to point this out. If you think my predominantly white, predominantly male friends are thoroughly in keeping with what black American shop assistants were up to, then it seems lots of us don't agree with you.
Someone else on the Ship used to be fond of saying that etymology is not meaning. The problem with shorthand is when people forget what the shorthand was supposed to originally mean.
Plus your reasoning is odd. I didn't actually say what you claim I'm saying. But not even you could deny that Karen is a term directed at white women. And my point is that when it's not used in a legitimate way, but as a kind of indiscriminate way of attacking white women of a particular age group any time they make a complaint about anything, that's not okay just because the targets are white.
You don't need my sister's name as a supposed shorthand for bad behaviour. We already have far better, far more accurate words for bad behaviour. Use them.
I think I said that at least 3 pages ago, so why the hell anyone continues to feel the need to explain how justifiable it was to appropriate (yes, I used that word) the name Karen for some other purpose, I don't understand. And even if I accepted for the sake of argument that the original appropriate WAS for a suitable purpose, well the meme has long since broken those bounds.
No. The original use of Karen is as a name for female children, originally in Denmark, as one of the many variants of the name Katherine.
Also, quite independently, as the name of a people living in Myanmar, though I believe the emphasis is on the second syllable
If you're going to invoke original use, invoking something that is far younger than my sister isn't really convincing. The whole reason this thread exists is because the original use is not what you're claiming to be the original use.
Coke is not involved.
Two further comments:
1. It seems to me that you fundamentally confuse the question of whether it's okay to point out white privilege (yes of course it is) with the question of whether it therefore doesn't matter what means is used to point out white privilege. Or whether every time a given means is used, it's still actually being used to point out white privilege.
2. You're bringing up proportionality again. I don't understand your universe where a wrong is less wrong because it's not as wrong as some other wrong. Why are you keeping score? Is this not exactly what I've said I'm against?
I'm simply not interested in a context like this in acting as if saying something is wrong is invalidated or diminished because of the existence of some other wrong thing, or that the thing is less wrong if we can find some other bigger problem. It's whataboutism, and it's a stupid game because we can always keep going to find some other bigger problem until we're debating whether we're allowed to care about infant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa before we've sorted out climate change - both of which make black American retail workers pointing out the privilege of white female customers seem ridiculously trivial in comparison.
So stop comparing for degree, and stop bringing proportionality into it every damn time I compare for kind. It's like saying that a blueberry can't really be a fruit because grapefruits exist.
Because this, hence proportionality matters.
Okay, so... what has this got to do with white men calling uppity women Karen and discussions about Tolkien?
This is what mystifies me about your complaint that I'm picking apart "every" critique of racism. The idea that my commentary on either of those matters gives you the slightest bit of information on what I think about Black Lives Matter, whereas what I'd said previously on a thread directly talking about the death of George Floyd doesn't, just seems really weird.
Your idea of 'proportionality' really does seem to be that it doesn't matter if we do it right, so long as we do it. You'll just accept smaller collateral damage in pursuit of a bigger goal, is that it?
Do you have the same view of #MeToo? Is it okay if men who didn't, on a calm sober assessment, do anything wrong get caught up while we are finally pursuing men who have abused their power?
Facebook's motto was famously "move fast and break things". Might be okay when it comes to companies and computer programs. I'm not thrilled with applying it to people.
There is a long and bitter history of "white moderates" attempting to police how people of colour highlight and challenge their oppression. Letter from a Birmingham jail.
There is apparently just as long a history of people reasoning that if something was originally done by people of colour for a justifiable reason, it can then be done forevermore, by anybody of any race who invokes people of colour, without checking whether the justifiable reason continues to be applicable.
I don't know how many times I have to point out that the great majority of people I've called out on the use of "Karen" are white, and none of them were of African descent. Apparently it's at least 3. Though I'm beginning to lose count.
But even if they were people of colour, the notion that EVERY TIME someone uses Karen as an insult we must assume that it's okay and appropriate because it was done by a person of colour is just completely nuts.
This is why, when you get 2 reports into the same police shooting of a black man, and one report says that the shooting was justified and the other report says that there is a cultural problem leading to black men being disproportionately shot by police officers, most folks think the reports are contradictory and use whichever one they prefer to negate the other.
But the 2 reports were not contradictory. To me it's blindingly obvious they weren't. And yes, sometimes I get on my keyboard and yell at the world because living in a world where people cannot hold different layers of categorisation independently in their heads at the same time is absolutely bloody maddening and exhausting.
Of course the really funny thing is that I don't think this letter says remotely what you think it says.
Because it doesn't say there are no limits and it's a free for all. It actually contains a great deal of discussion of just laws and unjust laws, and the unjust application of just laws. It talks about nonviolent action being preferable to black nationalist ideologies.
In other words, it contains an enormous amount of decision making about exactly how to challenge oppression.
Nor does it even come close to saying that white people should say nothing. It's a discussion of how there were other things that they could have said and done.
And of course I now know it contains this fabulous bit:
"Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends."
And here you are, complaining about policing means. As if they don't matter. No. What the letter actually says is that both means and ends matter.
So now, with that quote in mind, go back and read the point of mine that you responded to. I'm feeling pretty good about it myself right now.
Bandwidth, it is not unlike whatterboutry.
I’m going to match your degree of literal minded pedantry here, and point out I haven’t said anything about what you think about blm.
No, I think it is somewhat similar to jumping into the #metoo discourse to state notallmen, or sometimes men are falsely accused. #metoo doesn’t suggest allmen nor that it is ok for men to be falsely accused.
With regard to Karen. Shorthands exist, it is not ideal but I do not accept it is a serious harm. Bullying is a serious harm. It is possible to consistently hold both these beliefs.
It seems to me you are epically missing the point, and getting enraged about the wrong target.
Firstly, weaponising white privilege is a very dangerous problem. People’s attempt to name, describe, identify that are important to combatting it - as a widely distributed unled social discourse, that is going to be imperfect and inconsistent. Arguing the toss about the exact label undercuts this and to little effect.
If people were jeering at your sister because she is called Karen - then the problem there is people who harass and bully.
Names with negative connotations are ridiculously common, and fluctuate wildly.
Non-exhaustive list for the U.K.
Not including how we usually have negative associations where we have known some one we didn’t like with that name. Lots of that list will have started with characters in stories, tv sitcoms etc.
Most adults have the maturity to both know this, not taunt people on this basis, and to barely care.
If white men are calling women Karen because they are appropriately assertive, the problem is with their misogyny not the name Karen.
Someone saying, oh I’m sorry didn’t know your sister was called Karen - and then carefully stating to the next woman they want to insult - You are an angry mannish fool who should know your place - would not be any less of a problem.
I agree. The fact that you and I agree does not mean, though, that nobody ever attempts to jump on the bandwagon. To use the means of #metoo to pursue ends that are completely different to the envisaged ends of #metoo.
And this is why I get so alarmed by the line of thinking that seems to say that if you invoke the right 'thing', it becomes beyond questioning. That if a black person refers to racial prejudice as the cause of something, they simply cannot be countered. That black people can't be either mistaken or lying or misinterpret or misunderstand. That women who invoke #metoo cannot be mistaken or lying or misinterpret or misunderstand.
Or that they are somehow immune to making bad decisions in general.
I see far too many people leaping from the reasoning that Black Lives Matter is right in principle, or that #metoo is right in principle, to just assuming that every supposed instance of those principles is what it claims to be. Honestly, it comes across as a kind of fetishization of women or people of colour. We switch from saying that they are lesser to saying that they are perfect.
And I say this as someone who is thoroughly in favour of affirmative action, of doing things to consciously redress existing imbalances rather than claiming that "merit" will just take care of it in the presence of unconscious biases.
What I have a problem with is just chucking out "merit" altogether. Saying that we need to listen to people of colour is not the same as saying that we need to listen to a person because they are a person of colour.
Lots of people seem to believe that "it's wrong to shoot a man because he is black" means exactly the same thing as "it's wrong to shoot a black man". It does not.
Simple and fair.
And this is the kind of fetishization I'm talking about. You seem to go from saying how it's important to attempt to name, describe and identify white privilege to saying we shouldn't care whether the attempt was a good one, or whether it was absolutely shit.
Whoops, we took a female name and made it a shorthand for white privilege. Ah well, who cares whether that was a good idea, we were trying to do something important so that excuses any kind of assessment of how well we succeeded at it, or whether we just introduced another way to attack women.
The ends were good, so we must not criticise the means. We must not assess whether the means actually worked, or whether there were side-effects.
Damn right I'm undercutting the means. That's the whole point.
I have a problem with turning my sister's name into an insult. Yes, the fact that it's my sister's name is what made me notice more than I would other instances of turning a name into an insult.
But I said that, to me, the principle against turning a typically northern European name into an insult is the same principle against turning a typically Chinese name, a typically Italian name, a typically Muslim name etc etc into an insult.
Whereupon various people try to tell me that the ends of combatting white privilege somehow turns the means of using a stereotyping insulting name into something acceptable. The ends purified the means somehow. Even when the means aren't actually used for the purpose of combatting white privilege...
And/or the existence of even worse means of pursuing bad ends negates any problem with pursuing good ends with poor means.
And then, someone helpfully supplies me with an MLK Jr quote about how important it is to have both good ends and good means.
At which point I can articulate just how fundamentally stupid it is for people to keep responding to my criticism of means by talking about ends.
Incidentally when I've seen it used by white folk it's usually by retail workers complaining about the way that some people weaponise US corporate culture to bully them.
For the record I wouldn't use it myself, for many of the reasons outlined. I'm not going to wade into tone policing how other folk deal with their oppression.
Oh for goodness' sake, this is so simplistic and juvenile.
I didn't miss it. What I did, unlike you, is not assume that a statement about MLK's particular situation should be elevated into a universal principle. Especially not when it doesn't fit with the rest of the letter.
He doesn't simply say that he should not have been criticised. He answers the criticism. It wouldn't have taken such a long letter to say "shut up and don't tell me what to do".
Honestly, this just reminds me of the way people read the Bible. Badly.
The fact that all YOU can get out of the letter is "he told those white moderates off" says far more about you than it does about the letter. Do you really think the only important thing in there is the race of the writer and the race of the recipients? It's a fabulous piece of writing and all you've done is reduce it to "white people aren't allowed to say things to black people".
Which seems to be exactly the way you read my post. Badly. Black folk don't need you to be the white saviour and tell them how they're confronting racism the wrong way.
I never said they did. But you've got this false dichotomy in your head where white saviour and white idiot who must not say anything are the only two options. You've got a zero sum game there, where either white people speak or black people speak. Never both.
I'm so sick of this fucking contest. Really. I'm so sick of people continuing to argue that the only way for black people to be heard is for white people to say nothing. I'm so sick to my very bones of people using race as a proxy for analysis, intelligence, rationality and a whole bunch of other qualities that, last time I looked, we didn't think were related to skin tone, when the whole fucking point is to stop associating those qualities with whiteness. And people just go and act as if the solution to that is to associate those qualities with blackness. When it's exactly the same fucking kind of error.
If you're stupid enough to believe that MLK Jr's message is that white people must not say anything, then I'm not stupid enough to continue trying to tell you otherwise after this, especially not while I'm trying to cook dinner.
But nowhere in that letter does he say "you shouldn't have said anything". In fact he says the exact fucking opposite: here is what white people should have said.
Just go and read the letter you're purportedly so fond of, and I hope that you might eventually notice how much time it spends explaining and rationalising rather than saying "shut up". It's fantastic writing. By a black man. But it's not fantastic because he was black. It's fantastic because he was a great writer.
I can't help wondering what you would have thought if MLK Jr wrote to any black folk who were not on board with this methods. That would have just done your head in. Because according to you, it's simply impossible for him to have written to a black person to explain why he was breaking unjust laws.
You're an equal opportunity fuckwit, I get it.
Everyone think of Your Own Name......
The name of Your sister /brother, partner/spouse
And the name of Your Own Children.......
Then tell me if you would be happy with those names being used?
That
Only that.
Not rascism, sexism, ageism , any other ism.
Just the use of those names?
Only That question is not being answered.
Actual black people (who are at risk of harm from the behaviour encapsulated in the "Karen" stereotype) get a partial pass from me. I still don't think it's reasonable to appropriate someone's name as descriptor of vile behaviour, but the amount of racist nonsense black people get to deal with on a regular basis provides a mitigating circumstance. Like orfeo, though, the majority of people I see posting "Karen" memes etc. aren't black. They're middle-class white liberals (mostly middle-class white liberal women) using the meme to call out their middle-class white racist neighbours. I don't give them a pass.
Yes, my name was commonly used as a slang term for sex. It has reduced in recent years, admittedly this is not an insult really. I don't care.