Oh my God!! I just learned I’m a Karen! And I have Southpark to thank for this enlightening although socially painful realization.
The bawdy animated comedy show’s clip features a white father in his study, calling in his adolescent daughter, closing the door, and asking her point blank: Why does everyone call me a Karen? Deadpan, the girl blinks and tells him don’t worry about it. But … he really wants to know. So the kid explains the expression came from the internet and refers to white privilege (meaning white people have nothing in life to complain about and get all the breaks) and specifically white women—who are educated, with career, car, McMansion, kids in good schools, coiffed hair, acrylic nails, health club, summer and winter vacations, stocked pantries, able to pay their bills and live a little—get real irate when someone (whose life will never come close to equating their own overly-blessed existence) ‘comes across as’ DISRESPECTING them, well, us.
Ohhhhh.
How many times have I gone on and on about a person or people being so disrespectful toward ME? I sound like my mother who also was put out when feeling disrespected by her children or a clerk or worker (of lower wages and no ability to ever afford college or to work her way up to better pay and better life and who also is a person of color).
OK. IDK.
I guess because a woman is white and the person she thinks is disrespectful toward her is a person of color or ethnic minority, and perhaps also learning English, that deep-seated bigotry is the cause of what just may be only a personality clash (although in appearance seems between the advantaged and the disadvantaged).
And what exactly are men (white, educated, good life) called who rant and rave about being disrespected? Rodney Daingerfield? The comedian went far in show biz with his famous line: I tell ya, I get no respect. And then came wild applause (because everyone knows exactly what he’s talking about). I guess we can keep calling men who bellow about being disrespected bastards. We always have.
Well, thank you “Southpark.” Now my goal in life is to never again go on about being disrespected by someone at the grocery store, gas station, government office, medical facility, other drivers on the road—whomever, wherever. Won’t hear a peep outta me.
Sigh.
Sigh.
(Fingernails galloping on the counter.)
It’s just that …. Nooooo, I said I’d never again talk about people being disrespectful toward me or ponder why I am not respected.
What color is your …
My problem with striving toward never being called a Karen again is that … well if you must know, respect is very important to me. I learned this about myself at age 29 during one of my unemployment stints. Besides applying for jobs all around—whether qualified, over qualified or not qualified at all—I thought career books might provide practical direction. But those kind of books amounted to psychoanalyzing yourself, to get to your core values. After taking a number of surveys (Karen that I am, I used to love taking surveys to find out more about ME), and matching weighted inquiries to precise questions, I discovered that the most important outcome I want from a job (or life) is not so much big salary but … respect: the feeling of ME being respected by my peers and everyone else. Wanna know the second most important value I want from the work I do (according to my young adult self)? It was helping people. See, I’m not all that bad for a Karen. Maybe the name should be Karena for those who sincerely care about and want to help solve the world’s problems.
I haven’t thought about those career guidance books since the ’90s. It just so happens that the career paths I chose have never been respected by the masses and now come with a lot of disdain: newspaper reporter and public school teacher.
So, it’s me, not them. I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess. Ooops, sounding too much a Karen again. I just assume Karens are self-pitying whinny white gals. Gosh, I hate myself already.
And being a Karen at my age is pretty pathetic. But I get it, kids. [That’s how to tell if you’re an old woman Karen, calling everybody younger than you ‘kids’ like I do all the time. To others it’s condescending.]
So white women who are politically Left and Democrats, went to college (on government loans, grants and work-study like I had to), somehow always had a car (thanks Dad and others), never stopped applying for the jobs I wanted, sometimes getting interviews, rarely getting the job, lived in satisfactory housing (most in serious crime zones), managed to keep up appearances while overeating, traveling on occasion, donating to good causes, raising dogs as children—we are the Karens of America, Karena, if you don’t mind, for those whose hearts are in the right place.
Karens, from how I understood the insult pre “Southpark,” were white women who are educated and middle class or socioeconomically higher and Democrats but are overly afraid and anxious when some dubious incident comes along, involving a Black man, for example. The Karen I heard about was frightened over a Black guy while she was walking a dog or something. Some kinda strange encounter. She pressed charges. He turned out to be kind and decent and not criminally interested in her.
But hey, in speaking for all women, let me say our gender has a long history of being brutalized by men in general. It happens every single day. And we are raised to realize we can be attacked just for being women, and to always be on guard. To be suspicious first upon any encounter. The men in our Karen lives tell us to carry a handgun or some kind of protection. Because you never know when it comes to meeting up with a stranger.
I don’t know if every uptight white educated middle-upper class woman should be referred to as a Karen. The deep-seated racism, bigotry and prejudices and knee-jerk over reactions are what make a woman a Karen. Same for white men who overreact due to racism when dealing with a person of color, like the “Southpark” father must have been caught doing.
For my small part, I am just going to forget about other people’s disrespect real or imagined toward little old me. I learned a long time ago, a lot of people will never respect you no matter what you do and how you look. So you gotta respect yourself, be able to live with yourself, and to hell with what other people think about you (even if at first glance, you seem to fit the latest societal put down).