We here at The Empty Press would like to take a moment to register our frustration with a recent trend.
The colloquialism “Karen” used to refer to entitled White ladies who leverage their privilege on unassuming people, especially those cases where the women in question threaten to call the authorities on perfectly harmless people of colour who are just going about their day.
However, we are seeing a tendency, particularly by other White people, to apply the insult to pretty much any White woman who complains about anything, and we are not down with it.
Frankly, if White women aren’t free to complain, then who is? Certainly not people of colour. Have you ever stood in a long line at customer service, waiting for someone to acknowledge your existence, and thought “Man, I wish I could tell that kid to get off his phone without being tased?”. Well, guess who doesn’t have to think that? Karen! She snaps “get off your phone” and mop-top has to just bite his tongue and call “Next”, while we all win.
Also, let’s not go assigning too much blame, here. When Karen calls the cops on kids selling lemonade, or ICE on a man tending to his own garden, or the FBI on someone pushing a stroller with a light-skinned baby inside, she only does so because she knows that call is going to go to some Chad who wants to break in his new nightstick.
Look, we know it is pretty funny to see a White lady flip out in Wal-mart and demand to see a manager, but that’s only because you WISH you could do that. Goodness knows you would love to be able to say “How about you do your damned job”, or “You guys can figure out who gets to take their break on your own time”, or simply “HELLO?!”, but you can’t. Karen can. Karen should. Karen must.
And let’s be real, people of colour, that brat in Pearson who’s looking at their nails instead of you? There’s a pretty good chance they’re one of our brats, and we know they don’t listen to us.
Is “Karen” even that good of a term, anyway? Do you think that the anyone who’s clearly spent their whole life being told how special they are, that they think it’s okay to berate the lady at the rental service for making minimum wage, while they pull down six-grand per instagram-post, would ever have a name as mundane as “Karen”? At the very least it would be “Qaeryn”.
Before we go, we’d like to point out that we’re far from the only people to sing the praises of those special Karens. Long before it became an entry in Urban Dictionary, Tommy Davidson said it better than we ever could, and we recommend you heed his words.
Oh, and one more thing. If she’s having to tell you to put your cigarette out, she’s not a Karen or a Qaeryn. You’re just a dick.
