And that’s where I disagree with you. That’s one of the ways slurs work. They’re either designed to dehumanize, debase, or erase. On a societal level, it’s a false equivalency to say one is not as bad as the other. On an individual level, it’s unfair to attempt to compare because you can’t rightly judge the level of malevolent intent, if and how it lands on the recipient, or other mitigating factors like whether it was public and loud or more private.
To call a woman a bitch or a c*$& became a profanity because it rose to widespread use and it dehumanized (bitch) or debased (“that body part is all you’re good for”) women but it started out as a joke. The rise of the word use accompanied the inevitable push back against the rise of women (rights, autonomy, education).
And now we have Karen, poised for much the same kind of damage in a very similar atmosphere on the heels of #MeToo. At first it seems innocuous, it’s just a name after all. It’s funny really, so was ‘bitch’ to start off with. However, Karen is more of a double edged sword than people seem to realize. I’m deeply troubled by it’s use, particularly in the political climate today.
Karen accomplishes a couple of things. First, it protects abuses of POC and people lower on the socioeconomic scale by people perceived to be higher up the hierarchical ladder by erasing or obfuscating their identity as individuals. This normalizes that behavior for everyone on the ladder, including the recipient of the abuse. The abuser is never held to account, yet the damage remains and is now spread out to the whole identity group, in this case all white women. (Secondly) In many of the cases making headlines, the Karen slur completely erases responsibility of the males with them who participated, goaded, or stood by and did nothing. The entire focus is on the woman. That’s problematic . And it shows how proper blame for aggressive acts is being shifted and therefore cannot be ended and justice cannot be sought.
(I’m not protecting white women here, I want these women to be held accountable for what they did. But they cannot be if they are white woman instead of Amy Cooper. )
This is responding to the bigotry of white supremacy with the bigotry of misogyny. It allows white supremacy to hide, fester, and grow in the shadows while providing a convenient scapegoat for rage. Eventually, it very well may grow beyond white women and morph into the hatred of all women. Historically, such times have ended with horrific mass violence against women. It happens in nearly every culture.
And the patriarchy of white supremacy remains intact. Everyone not on that uppermost level fights for scraps while those few at the top set us against each other and hoard resources.
Thirdly, there’s a chance it’s continued use will derail the BLM movement. The current protests are more successful for several factors, one of which is allies. There are a lot of non-black faces in those crowds. People are saying no more — enough with the hate — Black Lives Matter too. If enough black people latch onto “Karen” as a pressure valve and it makes that shift (which seems to be happening), they will sully their movement and they could lose this moment.
I don’t want to see that happen. We either have justice and freedom for all of us, or none of us. There is no halfway on this fact and it’s non-negotiable.
Ultimately, the enemy we must fight amongst and within ourselves is bigotry, with chauvanism being counted a form of bigotry. Any and all forms. Otherwise, we will never be the America we could be.
