"How the 'Karen Meme' Confronts the Violent History of White Womanhood"

[Igneococcus]

This just popped up as a recomendation in Firefox when I open a new tab. I can't fully read it right now because I'm in a meeting any moment now (someone's still sorting out techinical issues), but a first quick scan makes me go "WTF" :

time.com/5857023/karen-meme-history-meaning/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

@Justhadathought

If however you live in a place where the demographics mean that a largish proportion of those people are black, it may create an impression that the word is being used racially. Maybe it would begin to be used that way in that place, too but usually it does still retain it's general meaning

It's the same with being stopped by the police whilst driving a shiny, expensive black car with tinted windows. That is not exclusive to expensive black cars being driven by black people. It happens on a daily basis where I live; I'm always seeing black cars with tinted windows being pulled over for a stop and search. And 99% of those drivers are white.

The reason. Such cars are the rather cliched choice of local criminals, gangsters and drug dealers.

Except the people the police are stopping aren’t those with tinted windows. You might want to actually look at the figures as they don’t agree with you. In Dorset (where there are hardly any black people) you are 35 times more likely to be stopped if you are black. 28 time in Brighton, also not that mixed.

Agree re restroom I think toilet is considered a bit crass in USA though!

I always liked the term 'fanny pack'

Yes it's interesting and sometimes funny but I would never say eg you need to stop saying fanny pack because it's derogatory to women (or similar, not a great example prob but ykwim)..

In the UK the term thug is almost exclusively male, predominantly white and overwhelmingly used when someone commis a violent act. Whereas Karen in the UK is a working class middle aged women who might make a noise about something and therefore must be shut down immediately.

Thug in Uk brings to mind football hooligans, skinheads, men who use their size and violent tendencies to intimidate. Generally (but not exclusively) used towards white people. If in America it’s used by American racists do we have to change our language? Even if the word is directed at whites?

Also I watched an episode of Happy Days once and Mr Cunningham shouted up to Joanie “you stay in your room or I’ll nail your fanny to the bed” which shocked the shit out of me at the time.

@TheRealMcKenna

On a slightly different tangent, do Americans still use the R word to describe people with SEN?

I can’t answer that one, but I did notice when travelling around California in 2019 that the word ‘handicapped’ is still in common use. It’s just not a phrase I hear in the UK any more. We stayed in a hotel room labelled a ‘handicap room’. In the UK it would be considered a bit ‘rude’ to refer to it in that way and would probably be labelled innocuously as ‘accessible’.

However, we call ‘toilets’ for what they are rather than referring to them as ‘restrooms’. Who would want to ‘rest’ in one?

Handicapped is term used for accessibility placards and spaces in the US,. The term has not been updated since the law was written in 1973.

@ShinyFootball

Agree re restroom I think toilet is considered a bit crass in USA though!

I always liked the term 'fanny pack'

Yes it's interesting and sometimes funny but I would never say eg you need to stop saying fanny pack because it's derogatory to women (or similar, not a great example prob but ykwim)..

It is a good example because USians have been told not to use it if they do not want to be mocked as it is crass. They didn't care that it was an insult to women.

I think toilet is considered a bit crass in USA though! It's just different - it's the piece of (usually porcelain) furniture you sit on to urinate and/or defecate. So in the US, you say "I need the bathroom" or "I need the restroom" - which means "where do I go to urinate/defecate?" But "I need the toilet?" is oddly specific.

RE fanny pack: fanny is (any)one's arse in American English, not one's vagina.

Except the people the police are stopping aren’t those with tinted windows You might want to actually look at the figures as they don’t agree with you. In Dorset (where there are hardly any black people) you are 35 times more likely to be stopped if you are black. 28 time in Brighton, also not that mixed*

They are in Liverpool, where I live. I see police stop and searches most days on the roads ( & my son has been stopped and searched, as a pedestrian, on numerous occasion when out at night with friends).

In fact a few months ago one such car ( expensive, black, tinted windows) was pulled over right outside of our house. The young man ( 20's/white) had been asked how come such a young man was driving such an expensive car. The car was searched. Afterwards, he knocked at our door and asked if we'd be witnesses.

I'm not saying that innocent people don't get searched, but that the pulling over of such cars is fairly standard for the reasons i gave previously. Especially if they are driving irresponsibly, erratically, and in an area which is under surveillance.

I'm not sure which post the tinted window post is in response to but there's no question that black people are stopped very disproportionately.

See the news about the athletes that the met are looking at... They only got traction because they are Olympians. Ordinary black people, little recourse.

And it's a self fulfilling prophecy. If you stop black people disproportionately you find things. Round here the drug dealers for example are white. If they were stopped all the time rather than black people, the picture would be that young white men are more likely to be engaging in criminal activity...

So, are we to understand the tinted window cars are being pulled over on suspicion of driving while Black whereas Black drivers are pulled over for driving while Black?
Not surprised.

I think the point is about causation. People largely sem to have taken on the difference between causation vs correlation in scientific questions but not always demographic ones.

So if black people are disproportionally poor, and poor neighbourhoods are disproportionately affected by crime, and the police are more likely to stop and search people in high crime neighbourhoods - black citizens are more likely to be searched.

Ditto the tinted windows.

But the answer to that is probably not reduce police presence in high crime neighbourhoods.

Nah.

Loads of white people in poverty.

Loads of white people committing crime.

Doesn't wash. Sorry.

That doesn't work since Black people are more often stopped outside the Black neighborhoods, yanno, for being out of the Black neighborhoods.

Is there any national data available on people being pulled over by the police and having cars searched by ethnic group in the UK? I can easily find the data by ‘stop and search’ but I don’t think that’s about motor vehicles (or I may be wrong).

@ShinyFootball

Nah.

Loads of white people in poverty.

Loads of white people committing crime.

Doesn't wash. Sorry.

?

Ok, this is a weird post.

The stats on this are well known and oft repeated in the media. Are you actually unaware that black people are more likely to be poor and live in poor communities, that it's statistically significant?

If we were having a discussion on poverty in the black community, you'd be disputing that?

I'm sure that was an insightful and thoughtful contribution.