# The Rise of “Karens”?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [July 20, 2023, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320 "2023-07-20T18:54:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 10
### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/182 "2023-08-04T14:18:55Z")
> [@chela](#):
>
> As it should be.
>
> But what would you call those men? How would they be condemned and ridiculed? By calling a raging hormonal white man a Karen”?
I’ve heard this or that one referred to as “male Karen”.
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### Author:  [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/183 "2023-08-04T14:19:04Z")
I disagree. It means self important, arrogant.
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### Author:  [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/184 "2023-08-04T15:07:10Z")
That is most likely its original meaning. But meanings change over time and under different circumstances, and “uppity” has come to have a very specific dog-whistley context that well-meaning (ha!) people ought to know about.
From Merriam-Webster:
“_uppity_ has a long history of being applied to members of racial minorities and especially to Black people. Its association with such uses, and the bigotry they represent, means that when it is used to describe a member of a racial minority it is likely to be considered especially offensive.”
From [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com):
" _Uppity_ means “haughty” and “snobbish”—an adjective for someone who [_puts on airs_](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/put--on--airs), someone who is [self-important](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/self-important). But, this descriptor has a very racist past, used particularly to [disparage](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/disparage) Black people as “not remembering their place as inferior.”
Given this [explicitly](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/explicit) racist past, it is a good idea to cut down on using _uppity_"
And here are a couple of articles about _uppity_ and its use in racial contexts:
> **[Yep, 'Uppity' Is Racist](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/11/yep-uppity-racist/335160/)**
>
> A lot of people have no idea that the word "uppity," when applied to black people, has racist connotations, but it's getting harder and harder to understand how public figures, in particular, are able to maintain their ignorance of the term's...
> **[Racial Offense Taken When 'Uppity' Rolls Off Certain Tongues](https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=5823018&page=1)**
>
> When a white congressional candidate recently referred to an African-American news reporter as "uppity," he coincidentally joined company with another white politician who, later that day, applied the same description to Michelle and Barack Obama....
> **[How Bad is 'Uppity'?](https://www.npr.org/sections/visibleman/2008/09/how_bad_is_uppity.html)**
>
> Awhile back I wrote a piece about Karl Rove referring to Barack Obama as "arrogant" and asserted that when the Roves of the world use that word around Oba
It’s a word with a lot of baggage and really should not be used by anyone who is aware of its history.
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### Author:  [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/185 "2023-08-04T15:27:49Z")
Why is it a problem when used to describe a white person?
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/186 "2023-08-04T15:34:39Z")
Because
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#):
>
> It’s a word with a lot of baggage and really should not be used by anyone who is aware of its history.
See the thread about it. (Which I’ll look up shortly.)
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/187 "2023-08-04T15:36:37Z")
Yeah, we did this already… get educated, @chela.
> [@The SDMB needs to have a banned words list](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-needs-to-have-a-banned-words-list/978494):
>
> In a thread in IMHO about the new Martin Luther King statue in Boston I used the word “uppity.” @puzzlegal put in a mod note saying: I had NO idea that this word had racist baggage associated with it. NONE AT ALL. If you want to say I am stupid…fine. I really did not know. I use the word so rarely I cannot remember ever using it before. Context. Context, context, context. There is no reading of what I wrote that is racist. Instead, the mod saw “a word that is naughty” and pounced …
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### Author:  [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/188 "2023-08-04T15:39:34Z")
So here on the SDMB it’s off limits to describe white people as uppity too? A Karen with white privileged acting uppity
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/189 "2023-08-04T15:42:15Z")
Thanks for the link.
> [@chela](#):
>
> So here on the SDMB it’s off limits to describe white people as uppity too?
It’s not against the rules. But yes, you should expect other posters to call you out about it, just as you should expect that in other settings.
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### Author:  [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/190 "2023-08-04T15:43:17Z")
Isnt a Karen an uppity white woman? I edited so I think you missed that point.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/191 "2023-08-04T15:45:57Z")
> [@chela](#):
>
> So here on the SDMB it’s off limits to describe white people as uppity too?
“Off limits” as in forbidden? Nahh.
“Off limits” as in - sketchy as hell? Sure. Open an ATMB thread about it, or post in that existing Banned Words one, and I’ll tell you exactly what it looks like to me. Especially _insisting_ on using it _after_ being outright told what it looks like.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/192 "2023-08-04T15:48:52Z")
I think there are two, related meanings of the epithet “karen”.
“Karen” started out being used by Black people to describe white women who abuse their privilege to assault Black people. That’s not at all the same meaning as “uppity”, which refers to a person who acts as if they have social privilege they don’t have.
I think “Karen” is commonly used now by men to put women in their place, much as “uppity” is used to put Black people in their place. So i agree they are related. That’s why i don’t like the word.
Either way, using “uppity” to describe people doesn’t reflect well on the speaker.
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### Author:  [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/193 "2023-08-04T16:24:18Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#):
>
> That’s not at all the same meaning as “uppity”, which refers to a person who acts as if they have social privilege they don’t have.
Or the privilege of the upper classes over the lower class minions. I just don’t agree that I can’t call out a white women/man for acting all uppity.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/194 "2023-08-04T16:34:08Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#):
>
> “Karen” started out being used by Black people to describe white women who abuse their privilege to assault Black people. That’s not at all the same meaning as “uppity”, which refers to a person who acts as if they have social privilege they don’t have.
This seems to contradict itself. White women abusing their privilege and then a woman who acts as if they have privilege? Being white is the only distinction?
I am not sure I see a useful difference there. If such a woman was approaching me acting in this fashion I will not determine her actual privilege level. I’ll see her the same if she was Ivanka Trump or Karen Smith (of any race).
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/195 "2023-08-04T16:52:26Z")
> [@chela](#):
>
> > [@puzzlegal](#):
> >
> > That’s not at all the same meaning as “uppity”, which refers to a person who acts as if they have social privilege they don’t have.
>
> Or the privilege of the upper classes over the lower class minions. I just don’t agree that I can’t call out a white women/man for acting all uppity.
No, “uppity” refers to people who don’t actually have privilege. Or who have less than they claim, anyway.
It’s really a nasty word. It embeds the idea that some people ought to have more privilege than others, and that it’s wrong to challenge that structure.
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### Author:  [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/196 "2023-08-04T17:01:58Z")
Thank you.
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/197 "2023-08-04T22:40:26Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#):
>
> It embeds the idea that some people ought to have more privilege than others, and that it’s wrong to challenge that structure.
Yes, and the word “uppity” absolutely is race-specific in its establishment and traditional American usage. Henry Bullock’s 1967 History of Negro Education in the South from 1619 to the Present makes it clear that the epithet referred to a specifically defined subset of Black Americans:
> [@](#):
>
> Every Negro had some feeling of protest against the caste system, and each had some sort of conflict with the white world. But these represented various degrees of deviancy from the norm of caste acceptance and were met with sanctions consistent with the extent of rebellion. For most Negroes, no overt expression of rebellion came at all; in fact, some of these were aggressively cooperative in defending the prevailing customs. Whites thought of these as “safe” Negroes, the type who could be counted upon to employ their influence in the task of keeping other Negroes satisfied with the existing caste requirements. […] There developed also the “sycophant,” the Negro who knew better but acted in his own personal interest. He worked with whites as Br’er Rabbit worked with Br’er Fox. He leamed to gain community influence and to satisfy his own limited aspirations by flattering white people into serving his own ends. At the other end of the continuum developed the “uppity” Negro who, by training and ambition, mirrored a constant challenge to the caste line. He was often ignored by the Negro masses but was most usually feared by whites.
“Uppity” as a term of disparagement directly implied a “lower-status” person not “knowing their place”, not being properly subservient towards their social “superiors”, wilfully insisting on their own autonomy and dignity, all of which were bad things from the speaker’s point of view. It was very much part of the vocabulary of racist oppression.
For white people nowadays to try to redefine or reclaim the word “uppity” as merely a race-neutral synonym for “being rude” or “acting like an asshole” does carry a whiff of, well, whitewashing. If we don’t like the word’s racist history—and we certainly shouldn’t—then let’s just stop using the word, rather than arbitrarily reinterpreting its meaning and then being all surprised when other people point out its longstanding racist connotations. After all, there are plenty of other ways to express the concepts of “being rude” or “acting like an asshole”.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/198 "2023-08-04T22:47:27Z")
Sorry to hi-jack the hi-jack.
You guys would go berserk if you can’t live with rude words and name calling. Try living where I live. No one has boundaries or the good sense to just shut their mouths.
(ETA, it’s the deep south. Rural and poor. Every color and gender imaginable)
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/199 "2023-08-04T22:59:19Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#):
>
> You guys would go berserk if you can’t live with rude words and name calling.
Sure, we all live with some degree of rude words and name calling every day of our lives. Isn’t it nice to have some designated spaces, like here on the Dope (with the exception of the BBQ Pit), where we can live without them for a while? Where we can learn more about such things in their historical and cultural contexts, rather than just accepting them as inevitable annoyances we have to put up with?
If consenting adults in any community enjoy an atmosphere of no-boundaries constant rude words and name calling, fine, go for it, I’m happy they’re happy. But I like to think of the SDMB as one of the places where we do value the good sense that helps people figure out when (and why) to just shut their mouths.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/200 "2023-08-04T23:22:12Z")
Sure we all spend mostly a pleasant time here on the Dope.
But it’s virtual.
We have to navigate the real world.
I can’t say I’m a consenting adult when I hear these things in the wild. But I’m also not a fool. If a kerfuffle happens at a check out counter or on the side walk ol’ beckdawrek will be scarce as soon as she can. Name calling (any and every name) leads to more words and thrown accusations and that can turn into a brawl, easily. Around here.
I’ve seen a whole football stadium fighting. Jr. High level.
It’s bad around this place.
One wrong “Bless your heart” and here come the curses. Phones pop out. Pix are taken. Police are called. It’s ugly as hell.
Best bet is to get outta there. IMHO
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2023, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rise-of-karens/987320/201 "2023-08-04T23:31:08Z")
To add:
Of course we need rules on the board.
Any and all I will follow as best I can.
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