Can we please stop misusing the name "Karen"?

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Kimmio Laughterlove said:
This post should've been for @Mrs.Anteater. She was the first to mention "articulate" language.
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Lol, looking at what time you are posting,I think you need more sleep.
The “ articulate “ was in the context of you thinking you need to speak for people who can express themselves much better than what you are going to war here for. Having listened to Chris video, I very much doubt he ‘d be jumping on the bandwagon with you.
 
Mrs.Anteater said:
Lol, looking at what time you are posting,I think you need more sleep.
The “ articulate “ was in the context of you thinking you need to speak for people who can express themselves much better than what you are going to war here for. Having listened to Chris video, I very much doubt he ‘d be jumping on the bandwagon with you.
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I’m having hot flashes. I had a migraine and slept all afternoon Tuesday. Monday was much the same. Hormones.

You asked something to the effect of whether or not Karen was being used by people who can’t articulate themselves better. I’m not exactly the first or most active user of the moniker. I think maybe only in this thread, in order to defend its use. My answer to the title of this thread is essentially “No, not if misuse just means offending people named Karen or because white women think it’s sexist” that’s my answer that I was defending. There are no black voices here but I defend their use of it and think it works. Arguing is better than just saying nothing about there being a black POV on the use of the Karen label. I am not speaking for them. If anything I’m empathizing with them. I’ve had my fair share of ableist Karens power trip me...and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they are usually entitled white women...who talk down to me in public, and private, who deliberately give me a hard time in stores, and plenty who think I am not intelligent enough or even fully human enough to speak from my own experience, and have that validated. I grew up around Karens and Karens-in-training. But I can’t speak for black people. That’s why I wish we weren’t just a bunch of white folks here. This needs discussing but black folks know what’s going on so much better, and have for many decades - they’ve been telling us not just through academia or “articulate” discussion but through artistic expression - if we didn’t like how they articulated it, that’s our problem - it’s embarrassing to read the petty complaints about “Karen”.
 
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Isn't articulate a word to describe something that bends in the middle to take a turn?

Thus the go round to all these words make me toby not care'n atoll ... n my little island I don't give Adam ... possession of that little initiated man syndrome?

After that he went around the bend chasin'd mole asses ... cookies and other crumbs of the allegory ...apes hit? All on the Appian Way ... flowering Alps... high Deis appears on the point of land first ... Landsend ... last? Tip of the English Spin ...
 
Ritafee said:
Being that Boots has never voted and he says ...

"If you have a movement that can shut down industry, you can make any politician do what you want them to do."

He also says "You can call it communism you can call it socialism you can call it pancakes"

So in keeping with your penchant for labels ... if you press play you will hear him say that while anarchists have taught him ... he is not an anarchist ...
but don't let that stop you ... heaven knows you call me all sorts of things in order to not call me what I asked you to ... as the video goes on ...
he doesn't speak favorably of the 'new left' that leaves the class struggle behind in favor of the spectacle of identity politics ... and he certainly does not put his faith in electing a politician that is actually going to change anything from within the 'power system'. (Like Obama)

He is a civil rights movement ANTI WAR organizer and an artist that I find inspiring. He is not a Karen!
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He joined the DSA last month, and if you read his Instagram posted yesterday (I am not signed up so I couldn’t get the specific post from the tiles but you can go to his Instagram page and scroll down to see it)...he still seems to think Bernie can win, with mail in voting ( because with covid more will stay home - especially in hard hit black communities - that is why the mail in idea was floated), and he thinks that’s why Biden doesn’t want mail in voting. I don’t know if he’s correct. He seems to be encouraging voting, though.

www.thefader.com

The Coup’s Boots Riley says his first-ever vote will be for Bernie Sanders

Boots Riley has shared some thoughts on Twitter on why he'll vote this year for the first time ever for Senator Bernie Sanders.
www.thefader.com www.thefader.com
 
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Mrs.Anteater said:
Actually, “ racist” is a too strong word I used. It’s just in the category of “speaking for someone and thinking one is right and knows better than the person themselves.” I also had an impression that defending labels is a sign of bias that black people have a less articulate way of speaking ( which as we saw in the video is certainly not the case.) - but it is an ongoing characteristic in movies.
So we are ok with labeling people? I would call out anybody who uses labels and generalized judgements, no matter what colour. I expect anybody who wants to make a point by making it with arguments, not with labels. Chris has done that very well. No need to defend the use of the word Karen”.
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I bolded your point. You didn’t say that Karen was being used by people who are less articulate. But the point you did make is entirely your own projection, it’s coming from you. I am definitely not defending the use of labels because of a bias that black people have a less articulate way of speaking. And I am the only one in this thread defending it. And I don’t even think the most street level way of speaking is problematic. It’s not their problem. We have a problem with colonial sensibilities - we’re addicted to them. It’s real, that way of speaking is not just in music and movies (it’s dialect), and entitled colonial minded white people are the only ones who have a problem with it.
 
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This. About language and dialect. And how black (as explained by black linguists in this Huffington Post video) people often “code switch” in white spaces where they don’t feel safe expressing their blackness. (That’s almost what they said, verbatim) And people who grew up never learning to code switch are in more danger - in courtrooms, by police. The assumption that speaking in “white voice” indicates intelligence and honesty, is racist.

(If you think about it, black dialects are just as American as apple pie - so why the hang-up about being articulate according to white American standards?)

 
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See, this os what I would be bolding in my quote.:
“I would call out anybody who uses labels and generalized judgements, no matter what colour. I expect anybody who wants to make a point by making it with arguments, not with labels.“
The problem is that social media is the new tabloids, people communicate with labels and emojis, all of which are running on the quick recruiting of emotions, often to upset people for a quick feeling of “ this is wrong, but I am not like this, so I keep sharing this “ - creating a short lived group feeling of a “ we”.
Then the label takes off, and suddenly, you are smearing it in the face of every woman boomer age here who doesn’t agree with you, because of your personal experience with your parents/ family. So tell me, how this helps with understanding?
 
Mrs.Anteater said:
See, this os what I would be bolding in my quote.:
“I would call out anybody who uses labels and generalized judgements, no matter what colour. I expect anybody who wants to make a point by making it with arguments, not with labels.“
The problem is that social media is the new tabloids, people communicate with labels and emojis, all of which are running on the quick recruiting of emotions, often to upset people for a quick feeling of “ this is wrong, but I am not like this, so I keep sharing this “ - creating a short lived group feeling of a “ we”.
Then the label takes off, and suddenly, you are smearing it in the face of every woman boomer age here who doesn’t agree with you, because of your personal experience with your parents/ family. So tell me, how this helps with understanding?
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I have been making my point with arguments. I haven’t just said, “you’re acting like Karens” with no argument. I think the point that it comes from a history of monikers that goes back to slave owners wives, is a good point. But nobody wanted to discuss it or were even very interested. It just didn’t fit their narrative of always being the oppressed one in the social hierarchy because they are women, so it must just be sexist and we’re not digging any deeper. Go away with your suggestion - we don’t want to look at our oppressiveness. We’ll just join the chorus of white women who think it’s sexist and unfair to people named Karen - to hold the power in our numbers - and we will just keep posting about that.

From an intersectional point of view it just shows a level of arrogance and privilege that white women think they are above even thinking about our own place in the power structure compared to black men and women. I actually, sadly, wouldn’t expect many white “boomer aged” women here to agree that Karen is a smart political statement - and that has nothing to do with my parents (what about your parents - what were they like? Tell me, were they racist? ... See? It’s not appropriate to bring up here in a personal way directed at you - so why do you think you are entitled to do that to me? I honestly think a few women here, because I’ve shared and made myself vulnerable, feel entitled to attack me with that. When they can’t find an intellectual argument they just use the personal things...my disability, my family experience...not as something that might give insight, but as something they can attack me with. f*** that.) I have met enough Karens outside of my family. And this group - that I have been a part of for years - is white and colonial enough without even mentioning them.

Any suggestion that they might be wrong is bound to be met by the same people who are used to being on top and in control of their lives and the world beneath them (but don’t even realize how much they power-trip), wrestling for control of that word, and control of understanding of that word, like they do everything else. And, at that point, the label explains itself.

If anyone is doing the equivalent of mansplaining, it’s the women here offended by the Karen label.
 
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Dear kimmio,
My lifetime is too valuable to search the last 20 pages for the posts in which you yourself mentioned the Karens in your life and where you used “Karen” against posters here. I doubt that digging out those posts would do anything to further any insight. I am joining Northwind and Waterfall here who have given up about three pages ago.
 
Mrs.Anteater said:
Dear kimmio,
My lifetime is too valuable to search the last 20 pages for the posts in which you yourself mentioned the Karens in your life and where you used “Karen” against posters here. I doubt that digging out those posts would do anything to further any insight. I am joining Northwind and Waterfall here who have given up about three pages ago.
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Welcome to the club.
 
Mrs.Anteater said:
Dear kimmio,
My lifetime is too valuable to search the last 20 pages for the posts in which you yourself mentioned the Karens in your life and where you used “Karen” against posters here. I doubt that digging out those posts would do anything to further any insight. I am joining Northwind and Waterfall here who have given up about three pages ago.
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Touché you win. Bye Karen.
 
(Why did you even bring up my parents in your argument then?)
Here it is: I don't like how you people behave - like schoolyard bullies. I no longer trust you not to hurt me personally by using my vulnerabilities against me when your worldview is threatened by a peon such as myself - so you pee-on - you gang up with each other, you're not as kind as you think, and I am leaving the cafe. This place is toxic - it always has been, and it needs to face how it's toxic and how that toxicity touches almost everyone who's here for any length of time - it makes me worse off having hung around here, but I know what my values are and feel I have other things to do and nicer people to meet. You can all have it and your "just" opinions to yourselves. The only reason I stick around is it's addictive. I forget that I'm not really sharing anything you care to hear anyway. But I won't continue to be addicted to this toxic place.. Have all the alt-right wingers and racists and real misogynists here that you want, too (calling the use of "Karen" sexist is so hypocritical considering) But if you do, pay attention, and hopefully don't encourage someone else to be dumped on while you say nothing.
 
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BetteTheRed said:
I'd like to leave this thread by remarking on the irony of a woman who has been called a Karen by her roommate, calling a first gen immigrant, for whom English is not a first language, and who probably can't meet very many definitions of Karen, Karen.
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That didn't happen. She didn't call me a Karen you idiot. I think she thinks I'm a Karen. She and I have had only a handful of conversations longer than 5 minutes since the day she moved in. Maybe because in her mind I'm a Karen. Or maybe she's ableist. I'm not sure.

Good for you Bette. Good for you. You pointed something out in your righteous bitchiness. Mrs. A's English and being an immigrant. Perhaps that's a factor I didn't consider but as far as I'm concerned if you gang up together you are one big blob of Karen.

I didn't volunteer how I felt about my roommate for you to use it against me though, you bitch. I didn't even have to share that. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

Oh f*** you. Seriously. Bye. Done. Breaking up with this whole place.
 
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