Central Park Incident

[Coyoacan]

I saw the video when it first came out and saw a woman who play-acted on the phone to the police while torturing her dog for sound effects and using the colour of the man's skin in the hope that he would be shot on sight by the police.

It turns out that, as a feminist, I should have seen a poor woman, scared of a man in an isolated area, making a call for help and giving a limited physical description of the man.

In one discussion, where I suggested solidarity with the mothers of teenage black boys who never know if their sons would come home again when they left the house, that that is not a feminist issue.

Does feminism trump the fight against racism?

As a feminist, why not deal with the issue at hand, white women weaponising their race. Surely that behaviour is counterproductive to the feminist cause?

It's not the responsibility of feminists to "deal with" or police the behaviour of all women.

It's possible for all of the following to be true:

• he threatened her or her dog (what was he going to do that she wasn't going to like?)
• he wouldn't have made the same statements to a man and his statement was underpinned by male privilege
• she was racist
• she weaponised his skin colour
• she exaggerated the threat she felt because she was annoyed at him telling her what to do
• the danger to him was racist behaviour by the police
• the danger to her was physical assault by him or him poisoning her dog
• people should be able to call the police when they feel threatened without worrying that the police will kill the subject of the complaint because of his skin colour
• black people shouldn't be at risk of being killed by the police because they are black.

On 'Karen' and 'handmaiden' etc - I don't like or use either. I get that they can be useful heuristics and as I said above, this video was a massive eye-opener for me - I literally thought 'oh THAT'S what people mean about 'talk to the manager'' when I saw it.

But IMO all these terms, while they may be useful shorthand among the initiated, tend to dehumanise when they escape into the wild of wider discourse. I've seen both 'karen' and 'handmaiden' used to simply stop people talking when they're making an inconvenient point. And they stop us all seeing each other as complex humans with multiple motivations and backstories.

There's a great interview in the Times today with Michaela Coel where she talks about the importance of empathy. She's talking really specifically about her anger at living in a racist society (UK) but how empathy between individuals can be a part of the answer. She talks about her experience of white people touching her hair without asking (!!) and says she tends to do it right back to them. She says sometimes they flinch, which may mean they go away and think about whether treating other humans like puppies is a great idea. But sometimes apparently they just love her touching their hair and she says it ends up with two humans just really enjoying stroking each others' hair and it turns into something quite nice

If you use terms like 'handmaiden' and 'Karen' you're significantly restricting the possibility that someone with different views might be prepared to examine their own thoughts or enter into proper dialogue with you. You're making it much less likely that either of you will have an 'ok, I see what you mean, I understand where you're coming from' moment. You're basically putting barriers in the way of coming to any sort of workable consensus or greater understanding.

She didn't look scared to me. But I don't tend to walk towards people i'm scared of (especially large men), pointing my finger at them and then tell them i'm going to call the cops and say they're threatening my life then wait and make the call in front of them.

I tend to want to get away quite quickly and I wouldn't let them know if I had intentions to call the Police as that's very likely to escalate the situation. Nevermind stand and do it in front of them in a secluded area with no-one else around.

But everyones different I suppose.

And anyway, we have names for white men too, I can assure you

What is the "popular" name for a white man who is like a "Karen"?

This is a really sensitive topic, both racism and sexism leads to good people losing their lives in our awful world, so a person affected by both racism and sexism puts them in a very vulnerable group.

I do also think women should have the right to object to the meme/slur "Karen" simply because things like this can be and are used to overreach. "Karen" has become extremely popular amongst men, young white privileged men, to shame women in situations completely outside of race related matters, even in situations where the woman is perfectly lovely but was provoked.

How do you think words like "terf" gained such popularity? It's yet another way men can abuse women. "Handmaid" doesn't have quite the same effect because it's only ever used by women involved in feminist discourse, not really the population at large.

Not condoning the woman's awful behaviour in the slightest. She was behaving appallingly. But if women criticize use of a slur that's frequently used against them, I don't see any strong argument that can be made against that criticism. We all know we'll never get rid of it until it does a natural death and another slur is created to shame women. Virtually all slurs used against people are aimed at women. (In the Anglosphere, I'm not a multilinguist). Because women are held to a higher standard.

'Karen' is awful.

"The origins of Karen as an Internet meme date back to an anonymous Reddit user, FuckYouKaren, who posted rants denigrating his ex-wife Karen, whom he alleged had "taken" both his children and, later, his house during divorce proceedings. The unintentional entertainment value provided by the posts led to the creation of a subreddit in 2017, r/FuckYouKaren, to both compile a narrative and share memes about the posts."

Great, you found one feminist who supports Amy Cooper, congrats. Still doesn't mean most of us do.

Quite. This thread is bizarre.

It's not the responsibility of feminists to "deal with" or police the behaviour of all women.

Yes, I'm not sure why it would be? Why is this any more reflective of women as a group or feminism than an equally racist white man is of men? Is there a feminist crowdfunder for her I'm not aware of?

Oh the double standards. It's not the job of white feminists to bear in mind the institutional racism of the police when they make fake complaints, because it's not the job of white feminism to solve the misuse of police powers and overreach. But it is the job of black women to stop using a meme coined as shorthand to describe their lived experience at the hands of a certain type of white women (not all white women) who display certain types of behaviour towards non white women; because privileged white men have started misusing it. So you are making black women responsible for the appropriation of their experience by white men. They need to stop using it because of white men. Why don't you go tell that to the white men and leave black women alone? Why is it the job of black women to centre the needs of white women?

Let's be clear here. The problem with the term "Karen" is pure vanity, because there are still a large number of people wit the name Karen in this world. Nobody would have given a thought to complaining about the term if it had happened to be "Doris" or some such other relatively obscure name.

Don't be ridiculous. Stop trying to blame feminism for one random white woman's unrelated actions. Even if she had been wearing an adult human female t shirt, this wasn't an act motivated by feminism.

I would probably take "Karen" differently from a black woman. But I only fucking hear it from misogynistic white males, because that's how it's mainly used by British people. To put women down. I've seen it used towards vocal black and Asian women, because these men often aren't aware of the race context. They just think it means "older woman who speaks when she should STFU". And I will continue to challenge the nasty, dismissive sexism of said men. You do you.

"Karen" is intended as a useful term in Black civil rights discussion, but it is only applied to white women who abuse racial privilege, not to all white people. To my knowledge, no comparable term for white men exists, even though white men shoot and kill Black men and often get away with it

We need your help more

You're not getting my help if you continue with the Karen term. Interesting that you don't seem bothered that no term was coined for murderous white men.

I would probably take "Karen" differently from a black woman
I wouldn't
But I only fucking hear it from misogynistic white males

It gets used on MN. I've never heard it in real life.

It gets used across social media.

I think she did sound scared (and I think people are going to be more scared when everyone is walking around in masks) - and reached for the first thing that came to mind - but that it was his skin colour, when he was being perfectly polite (and 100% in the right) shows that she's definitely racist.

I think in any other country in the world, she could have called the police, they would have arrived, and she would have been the one in trouble, getting a talking to, while the man was thanked and asked to carry on with his day. But in the US, he had every reason to be concerned at this - American police are institutionally racist, I absolutely wouldn't trust them to de-escalate her behaviour at all.

Filming and releasing it was just what he had to do to protect himself from the very real threat the police present to him. He's not responsible for the witch-hunt that's followed - which was overkill, no-one's learned anything from it (and she has a lot to learn, no mistake), she's just been vilified.

But it is the job of black women to stop using a meme coined as shorthand to describe their lived experience at the hands of a certain type of white women (not all white women) who display certain types of behaviour towards non white women; because privileged white men have started misusing it.

I think the point is no one should use offensive slurs against women, regardless of race?

If my understanding is correct, he confronted a lone woman in the park and passive aggressively threatened her dog by feeding it treats and filmed her until she complied with his instructions. He sounds like an arse. However, if it’s a competition she’s the clear winner. Attempting to use racial prejudice to encourage the police to shoot someone it so fucked up it’s unreal.

If my understanding is correct, he confronted a lone woman in the park and passive aggressively threatened her dog by feeding it treats

Her relatively new rescue dog, that she didn't have on a lead when it should be, and that she clearly didn't have control over.

If he was feeding the dog treats, it was probably to get it to stop running around where it shouldn't be.

He should not be feeding dog treats to other people's dogs. Dogs, like humans, can have special dietary needs. And worst case scenario the "treats" might be poisoned.

Her behaviour is indefensible but he should not be tempting stranger's dogs with dog treats.

I really don't get the mindset that a statement from one self proclaimed feminist must stand for all.

It's bonkers. Of course people have different views, feminism isn't some kind of robotic cult and there's wierdos in all walks of life.

Thank you bd67 for your excellent posts comparing the sexism/racism aspects. I totally agree.

One question though, the idea that Karen is now being used as a meme by white men - really? How do we know the ethnicity of people sharing their idea of humourous pics on social media? I'm confused by the idea that black men don't share Karen memes.

That’s why he did it Dido, because he knows from previous experience that people don’t want their dogs eating treats from strangers so they put them on the lead.

Parks in the US have much stricter rules on dogs than in the UK anyway With special areas for dogs and this was of course a nature area to boot.

Oh come off it.
It's being used by the population at large, which will represent the population at large, so people of all races.

How many black men are on Mumsnet?

^Sorry that was to Morris

Because "Karen" is all over AIBU.

She may very well have been scared. A man she didn't know, who didn't have a dog himself but apparently carries dog treats around, was trying to get her dog to come to him by offering it dog treats. That's pretty creepy behaviour tbh. He then carried on photographing her after she asked him to stop.

I don't have a problem with her simply calling the police on those facts.

What is wrong is what she said about going to report he was African American.

That’s why he did it Dido, because he knows from previous experience that people don’t want their dogs eating treats from strangers so they put them on the lead

Who appointed him the park dog warden? I think his behaviour is pretty creepy.

Feminism argues that as a group, identified by sharing a specific biology, women are oppressed by a structure which favours the class identified as male. It is a political movement based on an analysis of power and privilege.

Feminism does not argue that women are inherently better humans than men, nor does it suggest that there are no other axis of oppression, including race and class.

You can be a member of an oppressed group and participate in oppression. You can be a member of an oppressed group and be an awful racist. Oppression is socially constructed to operate on a class of people, who will experience that oppression differently depending on where they are located in other groups (class, colour, resources, nationality, sexual orientation, for example). Being a member of an oppressed group tells you nothing at all about the character of an individual in that group.

Feminism might have something to say about the way white women are socialised in relation to men of colour and how that power structure plays out in society.

What feminism doesn’t do is give that particular woman a hall pass for behaving despicably and risking someone’s life.