Standing Up For KAREN

I was in 7th grade, and a mousy white girl. I was in some type of elective where me and six other girls, seven in total, were sent out of a classroom into a communal area to work on/practice some type of play we were to create.

Our group consisted of two black girls and five white girls.

Our names/demographics in alphabetical order were:

Ann (white)
Bonita (black)
Eileen (white)
Jenny (white)
Rosie (white)
Sandy (black)
Valerie (white)

Not that this matters, per se. But these days, we are supposed to evaluate everything through the race lens, or so we are being told.

One of the white girls was very tall and wore “flood pants.” Those were the pants that showed one’s ankles. She was tall, very smart and awkward.

Her name was Ann. Not that it matters, per se. I suspect the name Ann is even more proliferated than Karen. The name Ann is Hebrew in root, meaning Gracious, Merciful.

Bonita, Rosie and Sandy were taunting and teasing Ann. At one point, Sandy went up to Ann and slapped her very hard across the back of her head. Ann was crying and turned her back to us all, just standing there. Big, tall, gawky-glasses-wearing Ann was just standing there in that big room, quietly crying. And there was no teacher present.

I was watching all of this.

And then, Bonita, Rosie and Sandy persisted in their bullying taunts toward Ann.

I found myself saying to them, “Leave her alone, don’t you think you’ve done enough already?”

And at this, Sandy turned her gaze onto me. She strolled over to me and said, “Make me, girl.”

I stood face-to-face with this bully Sandy and thought to myself, “Eileen…you are now in a fight.”

I didn’t know what to do. I had never been in a girl fight before. And Sandy was formidable.

She stared me down, challenging me. “Go ahead, hit me girl…” (or something to that effect)

I was on the spot and surely my flight or fight instinct was activated.

I took my right hand and slightly hit Sandy on her arm.

And then, Sandy did the same to me, but just a bit harder.

And then, I did the same to her, but just a bit harder.

And then, she did the same to me, but just a bit harder.

And then, I thought to myself, “This will keep going on…what should I do?” And I hit Sandy a bit harder on her shoulder.

And then, Sandy struck me quite hard in my eye.

I ran to the girl’s bathroom, crying, and Valerie and Jenny followed me in.

My eye quickly turned black and when I went home that night, I was afraid for my mother to see. I stayed in my room, and later, showed my dad and told him what happened. My dad was a WWII ambulance driver, and he knew what to do.

He brought me a steak–yes, red meat–and told me to put it over my eye. And we never told my mother about it.

When I returned to school, over the next days Bonita, Rosie and Sandy stalked and taunted me in the hallways and cafeteria. When they saw me, they would laugh and repetitively pound their fist into their other hand, as a signal of intimidation. There were several things that happened, eventually resulting in me being the last person out of the cafeteria one day, along with Jenny and Valerie, whom I think were waiting in the hallway to make sure the bullying girls had gone. I made a beeline straight from the cafeteria into the guidance counsellor’s office because I was afraid, and shaking.

__________

I was troubled as I read comments on a social media post about “Moms For Liberty” earlier today. For some reason, commentors were thrusting taunts about “Klanned Karenhood” and “Karen Kontrol” and saying these moms were “Dangerous.”

I Googled “Moms For Liberty” and was sent into all kinds of headline pronouncements. Civil Rights groups and Southern Poverty Law Center were all labeling this group, along with all kinds of articles stating these moms were dangerous extremists, domestic terrorists and otherwise.

The best I can understand from the head-spinning fist-swings is that these groups of mothers are fighting against things that bring harm to children–their children and others–that are rapidly infiltrating public schools in a number of ways.

And for some reason, the phrases I saw in the social media comments that I assumed initially to be isolated thoughts, were actually proliferated into my search. These little, coded sound bites made on the social media post were in fact, buzzword slams that were being swung around like fists elsewhere.

Something in me got angry.

Something in me thought, leave Karen alone. What’s Karen got to do with any of this? Don’t you think you’ve done enough to Karen already?

But, I get it.

Karen, like Ann, has become a symbol of red meat…thrown out to the wolves to chew up and spit her out.

As long as they taunt and tease Karen, they distract from that which Karen cries over.

There are many Karens out there. And like Rachel, weeping for her children because they are no more, the Karens are bereft.

They have been derided and slammed aside, bulldozed over as they cry out for God’s mercy upon us all. And people who seem to have no real skin in the game, keep bullying Karen to get their way.

How do you feel about Karen? Do you hate her, too?