"Karen" is a term used by millennials in reference to a woman who likes to complain — calling the police on her neighbours, snitching on naughty classmates at school, asking to see the manager.
There are all sorts of sexist connotations, as Julia Baird, Hadley Freeman and Julie Bindel pointed out in recent columns. There are also undertones of sneering at a middle-class woman who dares to use her voice.
So which is it? Using their voice? Or using the carceral state and leveraging workplace hierarchy to cause pain and suffering in those they seem below them?
Writing in the Washington Post recently, Karen Attiah — a "millennial black Karen" — argued Karen memes are neither sexist or racist. "My mother, who grew up in Nigeria, named me Karen precisely because she wanted me to blend into white American society and face fewer problems in life than I would have with a foreign or a "black-sounding" name," she said.
Many disagree, especially on the sexism point. Some say that the disagreement is, in itself, white privilege as Karen was African American vernacular for a white woman — perhaps the type who policed and complained about black people themselves.
My advice? It's a nomenclature linguistic minefield. Just don't.
My advice? Grow a spine and stop whining about a word that calls you out for being a racist colonizer.
Grow a spine!? Women were made out of bones; how sexist can you be?!!?
My personal favorite on the Wikipedia list was snowflake as an ethnic slur against white people. Really dredging the depths there. Pretty sure someone just wanted and excuse to write the n word a dozen times.
I don't think I've ever heard it used in a first-person context unironically, and then usually as a more sarcastic way of saying "critical support." Isn't it usually used as a pejorative for obsessive fans?
Sweet snowflakes, the "citation" for this is truly a work of art.
So which is it? Using their voice? Or using the carceral state and leveraging workplace hierarchy to cause pain and suffering in those they seem below them?
My advice? Grow a spine and stop whining about a word that calls you out for being a racist colonizer.
Grow a spine!? Women were made out of bones; how sexist can you be?!!?
My personal favorite on the Wikipedia list was snowflake as an ethnic slur against white people. Really dredging the depths there. Pretty sure someone just wanted and excuse to write the n word a dozen times.
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I don't think I've ever heard it used in a first-person context unironically, and then usually as a more sarcastic way of saying "critical support." Isn't it usually used as a pejorative for obsessive fans?
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This was written by someone who'd never heard of Eminem before 2017.