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Black Woman calling a White Woman a "Karen"
- Thread starter starwater
- Start date
Arctish
Centimillionaire
It's not complicated. People take in new information and incorporate it into their worldview all the time. And are better off for it, too.
ruby sparks
Contributor
That's true. And it's also true of the word bitch, which also does not apply to all women (only bitches). But one issue, I think, although perhaps focusing more on the potential sexism rather than the racism (so apologies for switching tracks on you) is whether women actually have to thereafter (after a pejorative term is coined, after it joins the popular lexicon) earn the term, or whether it becomes yet another term that gets used to essentially often mislabel women, by in some cases applying a pejorative to them that would not be applied to a man behaving in the same way. We know that a woman being no more assertive than a man can be perceived and labelled more negatively already, because of traditional expectations and roles.
I have to say that I do not see this Karen thing as a big (or clear) issue, and I can see why some don't feel it's either sexist or racist.
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Once that happens, if it happens, we can take complaints about the racism of it seriously.
Since it has not happened, any claim that is it racist based on possible future evolution of the word, turns out to be victim complex whingeing, I think.
Elixir
Made in America
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ruby sparks
Contributor
I was talking about sexism though.
And it's happened in that way. 1.4 million retweets for an hilarious twitter post saying "Jess Phillips assigned Shadow Karen Minister". She's actually been assigned Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding.
https://twitter.com/Bobby19_/status/1247178179934064640?s=20
No big deal and I'm sure Jess Philips can handle it, if she's even noticed it.
And it isn't hard to find other examples. There was even a video posted earlier in the thread which I thought showed something similar. If you're a strong or opinionated woman and you stand up for yourself, you're probably gonna be called a Karen. You won't have to smash plates, scream, call for the manager or report a black person.
I realise that you are talking about racism and that I am talking about sexism.
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ruby sparks
Contributor
Fine, yes, but I do not see how that affects what I said about women generally being judged more pejoratively than men merely for being as forceful or assertive.
It seems to be something else, suggesting a man is being subservient, not being a 'real man', to try to humiliate him, as when some other terms traditionally associated with femaleness are used.
For the love of Talks what does Native Americans owning slaves have to do with white folks complaining about racism from black folks? My point is that while racist black American people are a thing, it is absolutely nothing like what racism against blacks from whites were. So to me white people complaining about racism against them from black people is delightfully funny.
Elixir
Made in America
Yeah, yeah - I wasn't arguing that point. Just niggling for the chance to point out that Trump is Putin's bitch.
Nice. So ahhh, what does the drama between those two stupid families have to do with my finding white people complaining about racism from black people hilarious?
Elixir
Made in America
Maybe the implication is that without black people to subjugate and do their laundry, white people would turn on each other, tear each other to shreds and eat each other's babies.
Ok. That is hella funny but I doubt that's what Loren's point was.
You're proposing a "solution" that results in an ongoing feud.
What solution was Gospel proposing?
I also assumed he was saying that without racist oppression humanity would engage in endless war.
Wrongdoing by blacks doesn't matter because of historical racism. Sorry, but that means the harm falls on innocents who had no part in it, of course some of them will retaliate. The result will be perpetual racism by both sides.
The issue was racism, I was saying it would be an ongoing feud of racism.
What's really funny about this whole conversation is that you think Gospel was suggesting that a solution to racism would be blacks owning whites and wiping out their culture and torturing them and treating them worse than dogs for a few centuries. But the point, I believe, was that racism in the U.S. goes one way - whites against blacks - and continues today because whites, as a group, have never experienced white people being treated as blacks have been treated for centuries here.
It's about perspective, not a revenge fantasy, and suggests the reason that so many white people seem unwilling or incapable of recognizing systemic racism is at least partly because they've never experienced any real consequences of it themselves.
Worldtraveller
Veteran Member
Well, black people often call each other nigger.
Lots of white people think they should also be able to call black people niggers.
That's pretty much it, though.