How Karen became a meme, and what real-life Karens think about it

Posted May 30, 2020

External Article: CNN.com

André L. Brock, associate professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was quoted in the article "How Karen Became a Meme, and What Real-life Karens Think about It" on CNN.com May 30, 2020. His scholarship includes published articles on racial representations in videogames, black women and weblogs, whiteness, blackness, and digital technoculture, as well as groundbreaking research on Black Twitter.

"It's always about the gaze," Brock explained. "And the desire to control what's in the gaze."

In other words? It's about a desire by some white women to exert control over black folks -- just as it was during slave times, just as it was in 1992 and just as it persists today, he said.

Names like Karen, or Becky? It's an act of resistance by Black folks, Brock said. It puts a name to the behavior and acts as a way to gain solidarity over an injustice, maybe laugh about it and go about your day.

Read the article on CNN.com