\u201cKaren, time for lunch, Sweetie,\u201d my mother called. Our lunches were special on weekdays with Daddy gone to work and Debbie off to school, so I eagerly joined her in the kitchen. It was just me and Mother for grilled cheese sandwiches and Charles Chips. Being the youngest, second child, it was a joy to hear only my name, rather than be at the end of a string of family members. To be singled out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Karen<\/em> is my name, who I\u2019ve been for sixty-some years. It\u2019s a name I\u2019m used to, not Gregory or Stephen, the only two names my parents had picked prior to my birth. (They expected me to be a boy.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Surprised doesn\u2019t begin to describe my reaction when I recently heard a friend reference\u00a0Karens<\/em>\u00a0in a not-so-positive way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n My friend explained that\u00a0Karen\u00a0<\/em>was a commonly used slang term for white-privileged, racist, entitled women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Say what? That\u2019s not me. I try to care for all people. And I don\u2019t think I\u2019m entitled to anything.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I was upset by her words. I\u2019m now racist because my name is\u00a0Karen<\/em>? Why is\u00a0Karen\u00a0<\/em>used like that? How would Ann feel if her name were trampled and used as a slang term? Or Katy or Janice? I guarantee, not good. No generalizations, please. Whether it\u2019s about a political party, a race, a religion, or a name, no one should assume anything about an entire population. That\u2019s unfair. It\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What are the results of labeling people? It gives other folks ideas about what kind of people we are, whether true or not, causing prejudice. And if someone has defined our place in the world, it might be because they intend to keep us there. Think of the impact on self-confidence; why should we hope to succeed if nobody encourages us or believes we can? Accordingly, we limit ourselves in what we achieve, partly by the efforts of others to keep us in what they consider to be\u00a0our\u00a0<\/em>place and partly by our inability to see our potential beyond labels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Labeling things may help us make sense of the world, reducing the vastness of our surroundings to a space or word we can comprehend. But it also harms us\u2014those being labeled and those doing the labeling\u2014by destroying hope and opportunity for ourselves and for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I heard about this use of my name, I went into defense mode. I wanted to make folks understand I\u2019m not racist, though I expect those same people will say that denying I\u2019m racist makes me racist (yes, logic has gone out the window).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout fourth and fifth grades, back in the nineteen-sixties, I was friends with a black girl who lived a block away. Once when she was playing with Barbie dolls in my room, another neighbor, a white girl, came to play, but immediately left when she saw the black girl there. My reaction? I chose to no longer play with the white girl because of her unfriendliness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When my children were in elementary school, one of my best friends was black. Her two sons spent so much time at my house they were like sons to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I look at people for who they are on the inside\u2014their personality and humor, their inner light. Skin and bone do not define people. Nor do beliefs or achievements. We are each unique and can best be described by our honesty, our willingness to do the right thing, our courage to try new things, and by the way we love and treat others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet I\u2019m identified as racist because I\u2019m called\u00a0Karen<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My friend said she wasn\u2019t referring to me when she used my name in this white-privileged sort of way. My question, though, is if you actually know me, you know that\u2019s not who I am, so why would you put me in that box? I don\u2019t care that it\u2019s become a slang term or label everyone uses.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n I read up on\u00a0Karens\u00a0<\/em>and learned that they\u2019re selfish. I guess that\u2019s why I always share my chocolate. Oh, and\u00a0Karens<\/em>\u00a0routinely call the police when people of color do things they disagree with. The only time I\u2019ve ever called the police on anyone was when a dog belonging to a white neighbor bit me. And that was only to ensure the dog didn\u2019t attack any children.\u00a0Karens<\/em>\u00a0refuse to wear masks? That\u2019s why I\u2019ve made about three hundred of them for other people and never go anywhere without one. And\u00a0Karens<\/em>\u00a0don\u2019t believe in vaccines, though a nurse gave me a flu shot just a few months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do I sound angry? I am. I try to see people as individuals and I want them to see me the same way. Let\u2019s not label because of gender, color, beliefs, age, or even name. But it seems I\u2019m not supposed to complain. An article in\u00a0The Atlantic<\/em>, entitled \u201cThe Mythology of Karen\u201d by Helen Lewis asserts, \u201cWhat is more Karen than complaining about being called \u2018Karen\u2019?\u201d Unless, of course, your name actually happens to be\u00a0Karen<\/em>. Sheesh.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Super Bowl commercial for M&M\u2019s shows one girl handing another girl a bag of M&Ms as she says, \u201cSorry I called you Karen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s my name,\u201d says the receiver of the candy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSorry your name is Karen,\u201d responds the first girl, as she hands Karen another pack of M&Ms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now they\u2019re not only dissing my name, they\u2019re connecting its misuse to one of my favorite candies. Will this never stop?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my Bible I keep a bookmark my mother gave me years ago that gives an old-time meaning of the name Karen: \u201cpure one.\u201d The marker quotes Proverbs 22:1, \u201cA good name is more desirable than great riches,\u201d and has long encouraged me to do what is right, giving hope for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am Karen.\u00a0<\/em>It\u2019s a good name. Not a label.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cKaren, time for lunch, Sweetie,\u201d my mother called. Our lunches were special on weekdays with Daddy gone to work and Debbie off to school, so I eagerly joined her in the kitchen. It was just me and Mother for grilled cheese sandwiches and Charles Chips. Being the youngest, second child, it was a joy to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":639,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions\/639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}