This could be a problem for some people:
Five-term Los Angeles Rep. Karen Bass is the other Californian on Joe Biden’s short list to be his vice president. She’s rising up the veepstakes charts so fast that even conservative columnist George Will — the Ronald Reagan-cheerleader-turned-never-Trumper — said she’d be a great pick.
Like many of the other women on Biden’s short list, Bass, 66, is a ceiling-breaker. The daughter of a postal worker, in 2008 she became the first Black woman in history to lead the California Assembly or any similar legislative body in the country. But she’s also different. She’s a healer.
It wouldn't be a problem because Bass is fairly old, is considered favorably by lifelong conservative George Will, or even that she embodies the Democratic trait of bringing a knife- albeit an effective one- to a gun fight.
It would be because she is Karen Bass.
There are leftist pundits and tweeters galore who deride as a "Karen" those white women who fall short of a racial ideal. The racial slur took off most famously when Christian Cooper's
sister Melody posted the clip of Amy — identified by the mocking name “Karen” — calling the police on Christian. Amy was recorded by Christian after he simply asked her to comply with New York City law and put her dog on a leash in a section of Central Park that’s known for bird-watching. Amy was clearly flustered by Christian’s actions because she told him to stop recording her right before she dialed the police.
Christian Cooper, as we famously learned, told Amy no relation Cooper to put her dog onto its leash, as is required in that section of Central Park. Nonetheless
Amy, clearly didn’t care, which caused Christian to respond, “Look, if you’re going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it,” according to his Facebook post.
Then Christian says he pulled out a dog treat and called after Amy’s dog. He said he carries such items “just for such intransigence.”
When the dog started coming towards Christian this is when he says Amy yelled, “DON’T YOU TOUCH MY DOG!!!!!”
Christian went on to say, “That’s when I started video recording with my iPhone, and when her inner Karen fully emerged and took a dark turn.”
Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it, Christian warned the woman who was condemned for admitting she felt threatened. She was "flustered," where "flustered" is spelled "alarmed," a nearly unavoidable reaction under the circumstances.
Many of us, incurably old-fashioned, don't like being recorded in our lives and aren't comfortable with someone telling us he is going to do something we "are not going to like" if we don't do as we're told. Or as those of us on the left are wont to put it, she felt "bullied."
Still, Amy Cooper was a "Karen," which might have seemed a little odd to a woman named Karen, a black woman with a reasonable chance of becoming the next vice-president of the United States of America. And it should strike all of us as racially biased, if not also sexist. (There is no corresponding "Bill" or anything for a male, as if only women can be racist.)
Admittedly, it may not cause a problem for the "Karen" brigade. After all, it wouldn't be surprising if individuals prone to accusing others of racism, or of zealously protecting the white privilege for which they are denounced, did not recognize the irony of their own bigotry.
No comments:
Post a Comment