Black, White, and Red All Over

Why it’s time to cancel “Karens.”

Just in case no one told you…

You have a right to your opinions.

No one can invalidate your experiences.

I do not approve of the attempts by “Karens” to silence members of political minority groups by downplaying their experiences or by saying that such instances of injustice, unkindness, and brutality “never happen” or do not exist. How do they know? Where they actually there?

I believe and have understood that downplaying others’ experiences is a veiled attempt to erase people and reduce their importance or presence. Most of this insidious behavior is misogynistic, racist, transphobic, and homophobic.

Saying that your particular experience is the SAME as someone else’s and therefore their’s is not that unique or valid is a not so veiled attempt at silencing this person and includes decontextualizing their cultural, gender, religious, or sexual orientation from their identity. If this is how this person chooses to identify, who am I, or you, to deny them their experiences? Individuals should be respected, along with their values, and should not be put down through micro-aggressions, fear, and passive-aggressive condemnation. What gives anyone this right — to dismiss people? What makes individuals privileged to do so?

So, what people say matters — not as a ‘group’ of Black, gay, transgender, etc., persons. People, in fact, are not identities; they are human beings. They count and exist in nexuses of varied and complex relationships with sometimes great power differentials. Individuals have unique histories and lived and personal experiences. There are nuances regardless of identification. If anything, most of us are simply trying to understand how to navigate some challenging spaces and places— no matter who we are — and do so in a positive manner.

Finally, “Karens” are not just White women. They can be men, people from your own cultural group or political affiliation, or even folks on your job. “Karens” are those individuals who try to literally silence others by putting them down, including attempts to downplay or invalidate individual experience. They try to keep people from being heard by others or believed at all by discrediting them. “Karens” recognize the transparent and biased nature of personal views but will not accept that such individuals want, and need, to be heard and desire to voice their opinions without being silenced. “Karens” do not recognize pain or suffering that is not their own and will not legitimize it unless it happens to them directly.

It is okay: If you find yourself to be a “Karen,” from this point on, I am ignoring you. I do not have to challenge you or become defensive because I acknowledge and accept myself as a powerful being in this Universe. I will now spend my time focusing on people’s stories and not the bots and comments that follow. I will ask questions and not point fingers. I will attempt to understand, not silence or invalidate others. I will accept how individuals want their experiences to be perceived and identities recognized.

“Bye, bye, Karen.” You are now canceled.