Maybe It’s Not the Karens Who Don’t Get It

Someone suggested that Karen is an offensive term. Maybe it’s just indicative of all the downsides of wokeness and cancel culture?

Aside from the fact that it’s kind of cruel to people with that actual name, it basically translates to “some old person who doesn’t get privilege, CRT, etc.” Yes today we use derisive terms for it, but in the old days, it used to simply be called “someone with a politically different view.”

The important thing to remember is critical race theory is not gravity or some immutable law of science. I personally believe in critical race theory but I also know it’s just a school of thought and not allowing a certain level of discussion around it is equivalent to dogmatism.

It’s also worth noting that if we (Democrats) are going to lament the old Karens who don’t get it, we need to face that we don’t get it either in our recent self-appointed smugness as “guardians of the marginalized races.” David Shor, a chief Obama 2012 campaign strategist, is the chief data scientist at Open Labs. His analysis shows that college educated people are more likely to vote Democratic whereas over the past 2 elections (2020 and 2021) black and Hispanic people moved over to that Republican column. We cannot say with a straight face that we are the party that looks out for the Black interests and simultaneously respect their agency to not associate with us.