‘Karens’ have been much in the news recently. I was generally familiar with the ‘Karen’ concept as the name given to middle-aged white women who have a great sense of entitlement and do not hesitate to demand that the authorities (police, managers, and the like) immediately act to satisfy any grievance that they think they have experienced at the hands of those they think are inferiors. Very often these inferiors are black people committing the offense of living while black.
What I had not realized is that Karen is an umbrella term that covers a spectrum of people. Communications professor Apryl Williams has studied the Karen phenomenon and says that Karens can be split by age and different economic and social classes. A ‘Kylie’ is the name given to 15-20 year olds, ‘Becky’ is from 20 to the mid-thirties, the paradigmatic Karens are in the mid-30s to mid-40s range and have reached the stage of being used to getting their own way and the ones who demand that the authority figure take their side. Then of course we have the names given to people in specific cases of Kanrenism, such as BBQBecky, PermitPatty, Golfcart Gail, and most recently CentralPark Amy. Karen is a form of behavior that is not gender exclusive in that men like GymSecurity Tom also fall under the umbrella.
Here is the interview with Williams.
And the list of Karens keeps growing. Now we also have swimming pool Sarah who stopped black women from entering the swimming pool area of an apartment complex because she did not think they were residents, though they were.
Another newcomer is Spitting Stephanie, a middle-aged lawyer named Stephanie Rapkin, who came to prominence during the protests just the past week when she deliberately parked her car to block protestors, got out of the car, and then spat on a young black man who was there.
As if that was not enough to establish her Karen credentials, she later pushed another young man in the chest who was demonstrating outside her home and when police were called and went to her home to tell her that “she was under arrest for battery and disorderly conduct”, she resisted their attempts to handcuff her. During the struggle, police said, Rapkin struck one of the officers in the groin.” She was arrested and placed in Milwaukee County Jail for a short while. She was a Karen who felt so confident of her power that she attacked a police officer who did not take her side.
The latest is ChalkMonitor Lisa who, along with her husband Robert Larkin, accosted a Filipino man James Juanillo who was stenciling ‘Black Lives Matter’ in chalk on the wall in front of a house in the upscale San Francisco neighborhood where she lived. She accused him of vandalizing other people’s property, though he actually lived in that house.
A white couple call the police on me, a person of color, for stencilling a #BLM chalk message on my own front retaining wall. “Karen” lies and says she knows that I don’t live in my own house, because she knows the person who lives here. #blacklivesmatter pic.twitter.com/rOpHvKVwgP
— Jaimetoons (@jaimetoons) June 12, 2020
After the video went viral, her husband was fired from his job and her business suffered. She issued an interesting apology, saying that seeing the video was a revelation to her about herself.
#BlackLivesMatter | Lisa Alexander says she wants to apologize directly to Mr. Juanillo: ⬇️
“The last 48 hours have taught me that my actions were those of someone who is not aware of the damage caused by being ignorant”
Story:https://t.co/Wnxpe4CSpC@abc7newsbayarea pic.twitter.com/rhtjbVvJ7R
— Luz Peña (@LuzPenaABC7) June 14, 2020
But there is one thing in there that all prospective Karens should bear in mind and that is when Alexander says, “I should have minded my own business.” That is good advice for all of us.
In a seven-minute radio interview, sociology professor Jessie Daniels looks at the “long and painful history to the phenomenon of white women using the power that comes from their perceived vulnerability against black men”, something that goes all the way back to slavery times but more recently in 1955 in the case of Emmitt Till, a 14-year old black boy who was brutally murdered by the husband of Carolyn Bryant and his half brother after she falsely made the accusation that Till had “grabbed her, made lewd advances and wolf-whistled at her”. An all white jury in Mississippi took less than an hour to find the two men not guilty. It was only in 2017 that Carolyn Bryant admitted that Till had not done any of the things she had accused him of.
Here is the interview with Daniels about how powerful the narrative of white woman victimhood is.
On the lighter side, Karens have also been spoofed on Saturday Night Live.
There was Susan Smith more recently trying to blame her children’s disappearance on black men after she had drowned them in a lake.
I recently learned that the Tulsa massacre was sparked when a black man stumbled against a white female elevator operator, and she accused him of assaulting her.
And as an aside, why the heck was Tulsa never taught to us in school? It ought to be right up there with the Boston tea party and every other major American event.
Anyway, if white people don’t get anything else out of the last few years, I hope we get the message that, if we start to say “I hope this doesn’t make me look like a racist, but …” then we need to stop right there.
Damon Young of The Root has a different explanation. A “Becky” is clueless about her privilege, the “i don’t see color!” type. A “Karen” weaponizes her privilege (e.g. the Central Park dog abuser), using cops as a threat against Black people.
https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/the-difference-between-a-karen-and-a-becky-explained-1842708257
Only women.
Is there a “bestiary” for men?
chigau@4- It would be helpful to understand the history of the gender/race/class dynamics at work here, and how white female privilege differs from white male privilege
White women get white men to do their violence for them. Such as by calling the police with false accusations
@ brucegee1962, #2,
You might, as might others, want to read Richard Hofstadter’s book, American Violence: A Documentary History, co-edited with Mike Wallace (1970) ISBN 978-0-394-41486-7
My mother had it for a class she took in 1972, but I found it on their shelf when I was a teenager and it really opened my eyes about the history and extent of American violence. It certainly doesn’t cover all the atrocities, I doubt one single book could, but there is a large section on racial violence which is worth reading. It does look like used copies on Abebooks run $40 at the cheapest, so that may be more than many people can spend. Amazon does have a kindle version for $10.
flex,
I have a cousin that is trying to collect all the stories we heard as a kid about police violence against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in Texas before the old folk all pass away.
robertbaden,
That’s going to be a large task, but a very laudable goal.
#5, #6
I’m going to suggest that white men have the greater privilege, as they are male.
Holms.
They are male AND WHITE.
You never wanted to get my mother started about white women. She was more in competition with them, and white women took every advantage of the racism in this country they could. things don’t seem that much different than when mom wa alive.
While the apologies are getting better, Lisa Alexander didn’t offer any “That’s not who I am” crap, there is still the pressure to get together with the victim who will be expected to forgive Karen and ease her conscience.
Holms @10 It’s not a competition.
It’s not about who has most. it’s a discussion of the difference in quality. Or rather in this case, a highlighting of the specific quality that cis white middle to upper class female privilege has, and how it is displayed in the US.
It’s not like anyone in this discussion is unaware that cis, white, male is generally acknowledged as the easiest life difficulty setting. That doesn’t mean other privileges don’t exist, or can’t be discussed, or aren’t their own special form of hell when on flagrant display.
Gender, class, race, sexuality, sexual orientation, education etc. etc. etc. privileges all operate differently in different contexts.
#11
Yes? The comparison was between white men and white women.
#13
Of course others exist, yet it is odd to see a bestiary of entitled women but not of men.
No. It is not at all “odd”.
Right.
Karen
Kylie
Becky
Patty
Gail
Amy
Sarah
Stephanie
Lisa
All are opprobrious terms. Supposedly.
(Bah)
chigau:
Really? I suppose if women are particularly prone to entitlement, you would have a point.
(also, 9 is an odd number — did I miss one?)
robertbaden:
What about non-white women?
(Lemme guess — they’re exempt?)
So… is she a Susan, or is she a Smith, or is she one of the others?
(I do like specificity)
John Morales.
Maybe we should drop the personal names and just say white women.
Come on people! This came out of Black women’s experiences dealing with white women. Stop trying to make it anything else.
Right, white women. They’re entirely different to non-white women, after all.
Sure. Those are exclusively white women’s names, and it’s all about how white women differ from other women.
(Does that apply to trans women, too? Just curious as to the taxonomy)
Morales
Really? I suppose if women were particularly prone to be relegated to a “bestiary”, I might have a point.
chigau:
You mean, like this very post, which relegates women to a bestiary? 🙂
Not exhaustive, apparently.
(Me, were I do come up with an epithet for “entitled white woman”, I’d come up with some neologism such as Eww)
Great. Now we’ve got the white women’s defenders’ equivalent of “what about black on black violence.”
John Morales.
Yuu don’t see too many black women calling the cops on white women.
#19
My point was, are white men notably less entitled than white women?
Goodness! I just found out tonight from my long time friend that Alexander and Rowland were fellow residents of his! The same apartments, where I have been a guest for over forty five years, is where the two lived. That racial encounter therefore, could have easily been mine had I, for instance, walked in from the street, and entered the same, small, lobby elevator as they. Fortunately for me, I have not had an incident in the building -- yet, but it’s a painful reality I’ve experienced elsewhere and for which I always have to be prepared.