Can we please stop misusing the name "Karen"?

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Personally I think it is a big mistake to let perpetrators of bad action hide behind labels such as Karen, (or Ken), or whatever other monikers we decide to come up with.

Offending individuals should be called out by their own names and described in terms that demonstrate what their actions represent – unchecked privilege?
 
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Personally I think it is a big mistake to let perpetrators of bad action hide behind labels such as Karen, (or Ken), or whatever other monikers we decide to come up with.

Offending individuals should be called out by their own names and described in terms that demonstrate what their actions represent – unchecked privilege?

No sacred monikers?
 
Personally I think it is a big mistake to let perpetrators of bad action hide behind labels such as Karen, (or Ken), or whatever other monikers we decide to come up with.

Offending individuals should be called out by their own names and described in terms that demonstrate what their actions represent – unchecked privilege?
We encounter people with entitled behaviours towards the "lesser" constantly. We don't always know their names.

Bible says: "You shall know them by their deeds."
Observer says to themselves: "She's being a Karen."

(Sorry another joke that will probably not work. Tough crowd.)
 
Luce didn't Saint Katherine (Karen is derived from Katherine) lose her head for arguing with philosophers, and she couldn't be bought off or wooed over from her principles ? She was a martyr - maybe she would've preferred to give up her name instead - and she, in another incarnation, is a patron Saint of racial justice.

I’ve read plenty of comments from people named Karen who understand this modern usage, including those who are not even white, willing to have their name used in this way if it's for the right cause; they know it's not personally directed at them - and it’s a phase/ phrase that will pass. It's the ones who object who end up reflecting the behaviour it describes.

 
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Luce didn't Saint Katherine (Karen is derived from Katherine) lose her head for arguing with philosophers, and she couldn't be bought off or wooed over from her principles ? She was a martyr - maybe she would've preferred to give up her name instead - and she, in another incarnation, is a patron Saint of racial justice.

I’ve read plenty of comments from people named Karen who understand this modern usage, including those who are not even white, willing to have their name used in this way if it's for the right cause; they know it's not personally directed at them - and it’s a phase/ phrase that will pass. It's the ones who object who end up reflecting the behaviour it describes.


Then there were Anis and Annies to add to the concern (sometimes a worry) of loss of head ... they went with John a martyr of the wholly LANs ... under the spell of a fuzzy logos or logic!

Then in love & war all is lost ... we just are not aware of this yet as we stand waiting the WOKE period ... sort of like PMS or even PTSD! May be related to neuro messaging hoer mon's ... as a missal in sacred essence!

Recall it is just word(s) ... some sage compared it to an indelible goth! Visi Bulls? maybe visigoths ... without spin on proper gray Mere ... the gestalt rides ... surreal?
 
Which takes me to two rants.

Make your child's first name the one you intend to use, or shorten. Screw this "name them after their dad/granddad/greatgranddad" and use their second name. Screw this "John David", but we'll use "David", but for a lifetime of hospital visits you will be referred to as "John".

Spell it conventionally. I get it if there's several legit spellings, and you pick one. (I get Kathryn, Catharine, Catherine, etc.) But arbitrarily throwing vowels/letter reversals into common names is just bulls**t, and sentences them to a lifetime of administrative screw ups. If his name is Bradley, don't make it Bradely. If it's Jonathan, don't make it Johnathan.
Actually, on this one, we disagree.

My husband's family had a history of <firstname> <middlename>, where one generation would be called by <middlename> and next generation by a less common shortform of <firstname>.
We named our first born by that same pattern, started his life with <firstname> and a week in changed to <middlename>. He has had a lifetime of being called by middle name, and doesn't mind it at all.
My first name is an unusual spelling. I like it.

My choice on if i fix how they are spelling, and if a company can't figure it out, then they need to get their s**t together.

Once you start dealing with families around the world, you discover that our patterns are not common. Had many a confusing time tryign to figure out what someone "goes by" versus their "first name" and "last name" and "family name". Not the patterns that you expect.
I love it when a contractor starts to correct those confusions with their name and we can help them do so.
 
Dad's family and Mom used to call him by his middle name (actually, the diminutive of his middle name mostly). Then he remarried (for the second time, three marriages total including Mom) and his third wife decided he should go by his first name. Got used to it but glad I could just use "Dad" and didn't have to change to satisfy her. :rolleyes:

I am not 100% sure where my names came from. My parents did tend to draw on past generations but not too religiously. I know I have an ancestor 3 or so generations back who bears my first name but I am not sure where my middle came from offhand. Had my youngest brother been a girl, she would have got her grandmother's names (first name of Dad's mother, middle name of Mom's mother). I think the male names he did get were uncles or cousins on Mom's side. Middle name was for sure, not sure about first.

Little M, of course, was a whole new ballgame given where his mother came from. Fortunately, the Chinese don't have a set list of given names. They put together two or three characters that have a good meaning and sound good together. It means some names do come up fairly often due to popularity of the characters, but it is not like English where we have these books of baby names that we are expected to pick from if we don't want to sound weird. We ended up finding a legit English name that could be transliterated into a fairly good Chinese name.
 
As a note, i thought this would be a cool thread, but, the back/forth for pages and pages is mind numbing
 
As a note, i thought this would be a cool thread, but, the back/forth for pages and pages is mind numbing

I agree and regret being part of that.

Are you able to offer something to the conversation.....if you dare. ;)
 
My sense is the use of the name Karen was done in part because it is a white female name. It was easy to jump on board.
Most of the other references to the use of names was in an earlier time, many coming from war time.

Public shaming sucks.
 
Public shaming sucks.

It does, doesn't it. I really admire the way Christian Cooper responded to the incident he experienced. He maintained his dignity and respected Amy Cooper's dignity/humanity even though it was not in evidence during that incident. She behaved badly for whatever reason. Reasons we don't know. Shaming her or women like her doesn't solve the problem does it.

It's interesting too that women are the one's most often shamed.
 
Do you think that the ability to feel shame more keenly is a biological gender trait, or one that our culture indoctrinates in girls from an early age?
 
Do you think that the ability to feel shame more keenly is a biological gender trait, or one that our culture indoctrinates in girls from an early age?

The modern inclination would be to say the latter, wouldn't it? But could there be an underlying trait, maybe something developed over the millennia of human culture? Hard to say but sometimes the line between nature and nurture is far blurrier than we like to think.
 
I suppose it depends on how you define shame. Is it the shame of having done something wrong that results in wanting to make amends? Perhaps that's guilt. I'm using this idea of shame because of the context of this discussion.

Alternatively, is it the sense of feeling less-than or unworthy?

It's interesting to explore gender differences with shame. One response I have is to wonder if men and women merely express or respond to ashamed differently. Just pondering here, and throwing that out.
 
I suppose it depends on how you define shame. Is it the shame of having done something wrong that results in wanting to make amends? Perhaps that's guilt. I'm using this idea of shame because of the context of this discussion.

Alternatively, is it the sense of feeling less-than or unworthy?

It's interesting to explore gender differences with shame. One response I have is to wonder if men and women merely express or respond to ashamed differently. Just pondering here, and throwing that out.

I like how you contrast shame and guilt here. Guilt can, and probably should, lead to shame but shame on its own is really the problem here. Making someone feel shame just because you don't like their body or their clothes or what they believe or whatever is basically a form of bullying.
 
It does, doesn't it. I really admire the way Christian Cooper responded to the incident he experienced. He maintained his dignity and respected Amy Cooper's dignity/humanity even though it was not in evidence during that incident. She behaved badly for whatever reason. Reasons we don't know. Shaming her or women like her doesn't solve the problem does it.

It's interesting too that women are the one's most often shamed.
You (we) don’t have the right to judge a cultural phenomenon that is being used by black feminists to make a point, lest you end up being the point they’re making. ...and the people here missed the point, of course.
 
Just spend 5 minutes thinking about slavery, the erasure of names, and cultural appropriation, oppression and abuse by white people for centuries - including by white women - and if your knickers are still in a twist over the use of “Karen” - you have really missed the point.
 
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