WHAT'S WITH THAT NAME?

"What's in a name?  that which we call a rose
  By any other name would smell as sweet"

                           William Shakespeare  (1564-1616)


I'm not a betting man, but I'm willing to put some money down and wager that, this year, there will  be no more than a handful of female infants named KAREN!!!  Sure, it's a nice name.  I have known many Karens throughout my lifetime...even going back to my first date in seventh grade! I have had colleagues, friends, neighbors and relatives with this name.  Many of these women have had great achievements in their lives.  One Karen I knew was a great scientist, another a successful diplomat, and, yet, a third, a socially conscious filmmaker.
So...what happened?

It, unfortunately, has become a pejorative term used here and in other English-speaking countries for a woman perceived to be entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is considered appropriate or necessary.  It is now firmly attached to a common stereotype of a racist white woman who uses her privilege to demand her own way at the expense of others.  They are not necessarily named Karen...think Amy Cooper in Central Park.

The concept and reality of a "Karen" is one of endangerment for people of color in our great and free United States.  Karens are responsible for unnecessary arrests, incarceration, and even deaths.  A quick 911 call and their dirty work is done.  They are an integral part of the structural racism in our country, protecting their lily white neighborhoods, gated or not, as well as their gyms and their favorite coffee shops.  They imagine danger everywhere and act on their impulses to oppress others.


This is not a new phenomenon and has been around for many years.  The cameras on our phones have just brought them out from under their rocks.  I'm sure they were around in Hitler's Germany, reporting families in hiding to the Gestapo. They were here during the Red Scare of the 1950's, turning in suspicious people as "pinkos" and "commies".  And they are here now, feeling empowered by our national leadership (or lack thereof).

A French woman being accused of being a collaborative Gestapo informer at the end of WWII

They are not only associated with racism today but have also reared their ugly heads in the setting of a pandemic.  Refusal of wearing masks, coughing in others faces, spitting, going bonkers when they're not allowed unmasked into a store.  Perhaps these women have felt disenfranchised as our society becomes more diverse and progressive and it is their time to have a moment in the sun.

I have no idea of the scope of the Karen problem and I'm sure no one is counting these incidents. They appear frequently in social media.  Not to appear misogynistic and placing singular blame on these women, we have now seen the rise of KEVIN, the male counterpart of Karen, yet another name to avoid naming male infants.  But, there is a difference.  According to Dr. Apryl Williams, an assistant professor of Communication and Media at the University of Michigan and a Fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society:

"The reason we don't see so many of these incidents where white men are calling the police on Black people is due to the gender socialization process where women are conditioned to call out and seek help and men are not."

This can result in an even more lethal situation where, as in the case of Ahmaud Arbery, instead of calling the police, these white men decided to take justice into their own hands and murder Mr. Arbery.  We all should remember that George Zimmerman actually called the police before shooting Trayvon Martin.  They all had guns...please don't get me started on guns! On that note, I'll make one more wager: If the white demonstrators earlier this year at the Michigan Capitol, armed with AR-15's,
Beretta's, Lugers, etc. and protected with body armor had been black, they probably would have been arrested...or worse.

This gets me to policing. I remember growing up in a diverse community where there was always a cop on the beat.  You knew their name...mine was Officer Fennell, and he knew your name and your parent's name.  He knew where you lived and what school you attended.  That, community policing, is all but gone now.  Now they drive around in cruisers and have little contact with citizens, unless you break the law. I have grave doubts about the quality of the vetting process for police candidates.  They often don't look like the people in the neighborhoods they "protect".  Do they check their social media postings?  Are they trained in conflict resolution?  Should they be licensed like physicians and even barbers and cosmetologists?  The average duration for training in Minneapolis is 16 weeks before a rookie police officer is sent out on patrol with a lethal weapon.  In the United States, training can be as short as 10 weeks to as much as 36 months.   This is a far cry from the years of education required in most western European countries and others around the world.

My personal opinion is, instead of defunding police departments as many are calling out for, I would re-distribute these funds to improving the vetting and education of police, training them in how to better handle responding to Karens and Kevins and, yes, even traffic stops, making their hiring practices more diverse, and rooting out the few bad apples that there are, breaking through the "Blue Wall of Silence'. And above all, police must be accountable for their actions with increased transparency to their communities.

I realize we diverted from Karen to policing but I believe it is all linked.  We are at a very critical time in our country and something has to change. The "same old" just won't do in achieving social justice and equity.