Usually, I love your articles. This one, not so much. Most of the behavior you’re describing has more to do with classism than racism. Also, the privileged white women of this country are not the only ones 'misbehaving’. White people are not the only ones getting this wrong either.
Fact is, we have no national standard. We have confusing, often changing, contradictory guidelines written in namby-pamby kind of “whatever” language. We’re a very large nation geographically. The pandemic is not raging at the same rate across the country. Supplies are limited. You don’t know what’s going through someone’s head enough to call every white woman not wearing a mask a racist Karen.
We’re all scared and nobody knows what the rules are in a pandemic. How many of us were even around for the last one like this? Our last major epidemic was AIDS and it was different. It was slower moving and you didn’t get it from breathing so there were more clear-cut ways to protect yourself.
Look, I’m absolutely appalled by the behavior of that Park lady and I hope to God she gets charged with making a false complaint, violating leash law, harassment, threatening/menacing and whatever else they can reasonably charge her with. If I was a DA in NY I would do that. Crises bring out the best and worst in people. It keeps things stable to overly laud the good and show no tolerance for the bad within the confines of the law. So the bad does not get worse. Like Minnesota right now. And, yes, I am Caucasian.
That said, false equivalencies don’t get anyone anywhere. Mask wearing or not is not a cut and dried issue. One or the other. It’s an onion of layered intent, or a decision tree based on a variety of factors.
For instance, I’m white, middle aged, female. One child. Teenager. No elderly or at risk in my orbit. Can shelter in place somewhat but have to earn a living. Where I live, masks are few and far between. Many businesses are requiring employees to provide their own. I do not have the means to make a functional mask and must strictly budget to make sure I keep us fed and housed. Work has dried up. I suppose I could cobble something out of an old t-shirt but that material is so porous, I doubt it would be effective. I live in an area where heat stress is a real issue and I had an episode of heat exhaustion last year. I cannot go down again.
I don’t mind wearing a mask as long as it doesn’t increase my risk and is effective. I’m not buying masks in those rare occasions I see them. I think about it. But there are never many boxes and I think about all the people who are exposed every day on the front lines. They need them more. Those masks will do more for workers and caretakers. So I leave them on the shelf. I walk my dog twice a day. I keep my distance from people. The pandemic is not bad here.
If I get Covid-19, it’s highly unlikely that I will get sick. If I do get sick, it’s highly unlikely that it’ll be bad. I don’t have any co-morbidities. I’m highly unlikely to infect anyone else due to the fact that the only time I go out is to walk my dog, check the mail, and go to the grocery store (twice a month).
And yet, I’ve already been screamed at and mocked by an older lady and a WOC who based just on appearances was much better off financially than I am. And she wasn’t a single parent, so not so devastating if either one of them couldn’t work.
So. Is my not wearing a mask racist? Am I **gasp::my pearls** a Karen? Or am I just a flawed human doing the best I can in a bad situation with the information at this given moment. I think of the people in my community as I make these decisions. All of them. I live in a multiracial community. It’s pretty even between white, black, Hispanic. I think of my own family first. So do my most of my neighbors. I don’t think they’re Satan reincarnate for it or that it’s a racially motivated thought process either. It’s about circle of influence. Some people have large circles. Some have small. Mine, at this point in my life is very small. It’s not always been that way, it won’t always be that way. It’s right now. I’m a single parent. I would say that’s true of most single parents regardless of their race.
I’m not mad at the women who said those things. I get it. They’re scared. Maybe they did have a run in with some entitled person and I just became a surrogate for their rage. Frankly, sometimes I have a hard time containing my own since everything fell apart. I’m no angel. Flawed human, remember. I find myself tempted sometimes to yell at the Walmart clerk because they’re being ridiculous and obtuse and I’m just trying to get out of there as fast as I can — just in case. But I don’t, at least I haven’t thus far. I close my eyes, I breathe. I pray for patience, compassion, understanding. Or to be more like a Vulcan. Cause that’s what adults (and Vulcans) do. We control our emotions so that they do not control us.
So Maybe that’s where you are too, overwhelmed with the news cycle echo chambers (oh, the humanity, right?). Maybe you’re embarrassed because you think park woman’s behavior is a reflection of you. It’s not. Would you think that all people who drive a particular kind of car are fair and accurate representations of you? Of course not. That would be ridiculous.
I guess to wrap this up, can we please stop being so reductive with and about each other? Can we not add to that? It’s not going to fix our very real problems. It will make things worse. Can we make the choice to let this pandemic bring out the best in us? We can’t control much else. We can control that. We can confront systemic problems without losing perspective. Otherwise we just risk flipping a corruption on it’s head rather than replacing it with something better. For every 'Karen' that makes it on the news there’s an army of not-Karens out there trying to make a difference where they can, trying not to drown, just doing what they can for as many people as they can as often and as long as they can. There are a whole lot more of us than there are the privileged butt boils of humanity.
You just don’t see us. After all, we’re not news worthy.
