On Memorial Day, 2020, I saw Twitter explode with the Central Park Karen story. Karen is the first socially acceptable derogatory term for women, since women organized as a political class.
I was writing an article about this curious development when George Floyd happened.
When Idiots Collide (Video)
I’d been publicly predicting Minneapolis would explode globally since 2017, and writing on gender taboos and the deadly political correctness of MN policing issues and moral panics before that.
5/25/2020 was a big day for me.
I’d been meaning to get back to this Karen idea, but no one was ready to be interested in something as trivial as a socially acceptable, race-based, gender slur. The graphic above shows search terms for it are declining but perhaps everyone knows what it means.
Do they know what it means to everybody?
Joy-Ann Reid suggested the slur against white women was the unique domain of Black Culture and should only be used for racist purposes and not be “misappropriated for misogynistic purposes” by anyone as lowly as Elon Musk.
However, while this term, Karen, gets thrown around casually in many English-speaking countries. In Arab-speaking countries, like Minnesota, “Quareen” means a demon or a jinn that possesses women. The familiar trope shows up in Western cartoons as an angel on one shoulder and a demon or jinn on the other.
I’m no expert on Arabic, Muslim superstition, or Exorcism in Islam but I can see where “Child Bed Demon” is not a lighthearted curse.
Certainly not as lighthearted as calling someone the N-word.
At the peak of the Karen hysteria, last year, the CAREN Act was unanimously approved to stop white women from accusing people of color of anything. I found it a very curious way to put certain women in check by threatening them with prosecution for making accusations.
Curious Metoo Case No One Cared About
At the peak of the Metoo Hysteria, Minnesota political and media personalities were disproportionately affected.
Al Franken lost his Senate seat for not touching a woman in a photograph, Radio host Garrison Keillor was forced to quit his 27 yr old radio show for hugging a woman a little too long. Congressman Keith Ellison was credibly accused in the New York Times of beating this shit out of his ex-girlfriend.
Her name was Karen.
Mr. Ellison then won the election for Attorney General in Minnesota.
