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Karen advert

1000 replies

IncognitoMam · 26/08/2023 07:29

This shouldn't be allowed surely? Who comes up with this shit?
I'm not called Karen but I know Karen's that hate their name now because of the way it's used.

Karen advert
OP posts:
Thread gallery
17
Ineedanewsunhat · 27/08/2023 11:19

"there are some Black and Asian men who consider white women a prize above all other women - even (and especially) when compared to women from the same cultural / ethnic background as themselves"

There are some who consider white women to be whores and fair game for abuse that would not be perpetrated on women from their own community. Just look at what has happened in some parts of the UK in the last couple of decades where young, vulnerable white girls were passed around and raped for years and it wasn't called out for fear of being accused of racism.

The UK is very different from the USA. We have our own issues and problems here, many of them, but they are not the same.

TheaBrandt · 27/08/2023 11:20

Well so you jolly well should Chardonnay Everything is the fault of women in England over 45. Racism in the Deep South in the 60s / police violence in the US towards minority men - it’s all on us.

Ineedanewsunhat · 27/08/2023 11:22

I am NOT saying racism does not exist in the UK, we know there is institutional racism everywhere. But it is not exclusively the fault of women.

wayyour · 27/08/2023 11:23

MasterGaveDobbyASock · 27/08/2023 10:53

This thread is illuminating.
To begin with. Lots of women voicing their experiences of this word as a misogynistic slur, a tool to shut them up. Veiled accusations of racism with overtones of 'deserving' the abuse. A few posters state they are not white and experience the word as misogyny. Ignored by supposed 'allies'. Accusations grow more overt and aggressive and number of posters drop off, no doubt afraid to be accused of racism or 'white tears'. Women shut up very effectively.

Just an aside, 'tears as a weapon' is a patriarchal trope and interesting how supposed 'feminists' use it as a stick to beat other women with.

I can't genuinely follow the rant, but I notice we are chastised for concerns about 'transwomen'. I can't help but see the parallels as accusations of transphobic work very much as above.

Excellent post. I noticed the parallels you mention in your final paragraph but didn't want to add that to the mix late yesterday!

Ineedanewsunhat · 27/08/2023 11:25

Unfortunate juxtaposition of posts there. My last post was just an afterthought addition to my previous one. Not a response to TheaBrandt!

DeeCee77 · 27/08/2023 11:27

Interesting reading some of the comments on here since yesterday. As i said previously, anyone that knows the meaning (and origin, Black twitter, https://time.com/5857023/karen-meme-history-meaning/) of the term Karen, a racist white american woman who has historically inflicted terror on non white people by weaponising her white privilege, would never trivialise it or missappopriate it. Those that dont know this history its understandable to misuse it, those who do know its history theres no excuse. Karen is merely the latest term used to describe such women.

The Karen is the pure, innocent, pampered, privileged white woman, the most protected member of society..."Roy, that black boy (Emmett Till) wolf whistled at me" (resulting in Till being lynched and thrown into the river). She is the Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, she is the white girl (Flora) in The Birth of a Nation who runs away from the 'big bad black man' (played by a white actor in blackface) which prompted an audience member to fire shots at the screen to help her (a 1915 film, popular with whites throughout america, which also inspired the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan). She is Amy Cooper in the Central Park birdwatching incident in 2020, who phoned the New York police and (with an added tremble in her voice for effect) said, "There is an African American man—I am in Central Park—he is recording me and threatening myself and my dog. Please, send the cops immediately!" (not just "there is a man", there is "African man"...and 'me being a pure white woman, just like Flora from Birth of a Nation, must be protected'.. plus the fact she said African she knows full well the whole system (police in this case) is rigged against black people).

The Karen calls the police on black people for any number of things (a black family eating a picnic in a certain area of the park, a black girl selling lemonade on a stall outside her own home, a black man trying to enter his own apartment building with her putting her foot through the doorway preventing him from doing so and then following him up to his door). The Karen feels entitled since they have been put on a pedestal for centuries (from george washington's wife, daughters, and granddaughters owning slaves (human beings) onward) thus exercise their white privilege accordingly...."I demand to speak to the manager" (over the most trivial of issues) is just the latest incarnation of the Karen.

The Karen, like those following 15 year old Elizabeth Eckford on her way to the newly racially integrated school (pictured below), have inflicted terror in america for centuries. It is not a term that should be trivialised nor missappropriated by other entitled individuals (ie. some woman called Karen from Essex).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine

Little Rock Nine - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine

IncognitoMam · 27/08/2023 11:29

Oh ffs it's groundhog day

OP posts:
inamarina · 27/08/2023 11:30

wayyour · 27/08/2023 11:23

Excellent post. I noticed the parallels you mention in your final paragraph but didn't want to add that to the mix late yesterday!

Veiled accusations of racism with overtones of 'deserving' the abuse

It’s those implications that the abuse is somehow deserved that I find particularly “charming”. One poster even admitted they were smirking at all those comments pointing out misogyny. Nice.

ChardonnaysBeastlyCat · 27/08/2023 11:30

DeeCee77 · 27/08/2023 11:27

Interesting reading some of the comments on here since yesterday. As i said previously, anyone that knows the meaning (and origin, Black twitter, https://time.com/5857023/karen-meme-history-meaning/) of the term Karen, a racist white american woman who has historically inflicted terror on non white people by weaponising her white privilege, would never trivialise it or missappopriate it. Those that dont know this history its understandable to misuse it, those who do know its history theres no excuse. Karen is merely the latest term used to describe such women.

The Karen is the pure, innocent, pampered, privileged white woman, the most protected member of society..."Roy, that black boy (Emmett Till) wolf whistled at me" (resulting in Till being lynched and thrown into the river). She is the Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, she is the white girl (Flora) in The Birth of a Nation who runs away from the 'big bad black man' (played by a white actor in blackface) which prompted an audience member to fire shots at the screen to help her (a 1915 film, popular with whites throughout america, which also inspired the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan). She is Amy Cooper in the Central Park birdwatching incident in 2020, who phoned the New York police and (with an added tremble in her voice for effect) said, "There is an African American man—I am in Central Park—he is recording me and threatening myself and my dog. Please, send the cops immediately!" (not just "there is a man", there is "African man"...and 'me being a pure white woman, just like Flora from Birth of a Nation, must be protected'.. plus the fact she said African she knows full well the whole system (police in this case) is rigged against black people).

The Karen calls the police on black people for any number of things (a black family eating a picnic in a certain area of the park, a black girl selling lemonade on a stall outside her own home, a black man trying to enter his own apartment building with her putting her foot through the doorway preventing him from doing so and then following him up to his door). The Karen feels entitled since they have been put on a pedestal for centuries (from george washington's wife, daughters, and granddaughters owning slaves (human beings) onward) thus exercise their white privilege accordingly...."I demand to speak to the manager" (over the most trivial of issues) is just the latest incarnation of the Karen.

The Karen, like those following 15 year old Elizabeth Eckford on her way to the newly racially integrated school (pictured below), have inflicted terror in america for centuries. It is not a term that should be trivialised nor missappropriated by other entitled individuals (ie. some woman called Karen from Essex).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine

Ah!

If only you’d posted all this yesterday!

IncognitoMam · 27/08/2023 11:31

ChardonnaysBeastlyCat · 27/08/2023 11:30

Ah!

If only you’d posted all this yesterday!

😂😂😂

OP posts:
Ereshkigalangcleg · 27/08/2023 11:34

I advise giving your scrolling finger a workout.

GCAcademic · 27/08/2023 11:38

ChardonnaysBeastlyCat · 27/08/2023 11:30

Ah!

If only you’d posted all this yesterday!

I know, right 😂😂😂

wayyour · 27/08/2023 11:39

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LittleRockNi

"Ah!

If only you’d posted all this yesterday!"

🤔🤣

They don't engage, just walks of text and spam links.

wayyour · 27/08/2023 11:45

Walls, not walks!
I realise there's an edit button now, but I'm on the app.

CecilyP · 27/08/2023 11:50

Except, DeeCee77, all your examples either happened decades and, in some cases, centuries, before the Karen trope came into use, or they have come about after the trope was well established and used as a justification for it. The justification is spurious! Nobody is denying white women can be racist, or their actions can be the catalyst for male violence, (especially in the Deep South).

This does not justify using a very popular girls name of the 1960s to denigrate women. And why Karen? Not one of the women in your examples was actually called Karen!

TheaBrandt · 27/08/2023 12:20

Do you also blame modern germans for nazism? Have you studied history or critical thinking at a tertiary level? I’m guessing not.

HRTQueen · 27/08/2023 12:28

there are still self proclaimed Nazis around and one’s who keep quiet

are we to pretend these views, these movements no longer have an impact on peoples lives

TheaBrandt · 27/08/2023 12:33

Are we to blame innocent people who happen to be of the same race or sex as the perpetrators of historical crimes for those crimes? I think you’ll find the answer is no and this has been established for a long time now. You are starting to seem quite silly not to mention unhinged.

AlisonDonut · 27/08/2023 12:34

HRTQueen · 27/08/2023 12:28

there are still self proclaimed Nazis around and one’s who keep quiet

are we to pretend these views, these movements no longer have an impact on peoples lives

Are these self proclaimed nazis [and quiet nazis] made up of middle aged women who are trying to book a doctors appointment for their kid's earache?

MorrisZapp · 27/08/2023 12:34

I'm sorry but it's laughable to consider white women in history to be the most pampered, protected and privileged members of society. Dude, they couldn't vote. Or own property. Or marry for love. Or study the subjects that fascinated them. Or divorce their abusive husbands. Or keep their children after divorce if it was allowed.

They were the property of men, and men don't like having their property interfered with. Men don't batter other men because they do what women tell them to, they do it because they have violent tendencies and see women as inanimate objects.

The American president's wives and daughters would have had materially pampered lifestyles, because they were the property of rich men. Washington's wife lost her first two babies shortly after their births, and described being a political wife as a prison.

These rich women from American history represented a miniscule proportion of the population, and using them as leverage against me, a middle aged woman from Scotland in 2023 objecting to sexism is the stuff of esoteric comedy. You should sell tickets at the Fringe.

TheaBrandt · 27/08/2023 12:36

Read Valerie Martins book Property. It’s very good - fiction set in the slave era and looks at that from a woman’s perspective.

SomeCatFromJapan · 27/08/2023 12:36

I'm sorry but it's laughable to consider white women in history to be the most pampered, protected and privileged members of society

Being ethnically white certainly didn't spare them the mass rapes in Berlin in 1945, or the Balkans in the 90s.
(Or Yorkshire in the 21st century...)

LizzieSiddal · 27/08/2023 12:37

MorrisZapp · 27/08/2023 12:34

I'm sorry but it's laughable to consider white women in history to be the most pampered, protected and privileged members of society. Dude, they couldn't vote. Or own property. Or marry for love. Or study the subjects that fascinated them. Or divorce their abusive husbands. Or keep their children after divorce if it was allowed.

They were the property of men, and men don't like having their property interfered with. Men don't batter other men because they do what women tell them to, they do it because they have violent tendencies and see women as inanimate objects.

The American president's wives and daughters would have had materially pampered lifestyles, because they were the property of rich men. Washington's wife lost her first two babies shortly after their births, and described being a political wife as a prison.

These rich women from American history represented a miniscule proportion of the population, and using them as leverage against me, a middle aged woman from Scotland in 2023 objecting to sexism is the stuff of esoteric comedy. You should sell tickets at the Fringe.

👏 👏 👏

MorrisZapp · 27/08/2023 12:37

TheaBrandt · 27/08/2023 12:36

Read Valerie Martins book Property. It’s very good - fiction set in the slave era and looks at that from a woman’s perspective.

It's a brilliant book.

TheaBrandt · 27/08/2023 12:39

The women were property too. My great grandmother was one of the first women to go to university yet despite doing better than many of the male students she wasn’t actually given a degree like they were - just a “permit to teach”.

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