Welcome back family! If this is your first time joining us, please read part one of this series, then come on back.
If you’re caught up and ready to continue our journey into workplace Karens and their BS, then by all means, let’s get crackin’.
So as I mentioned in part 1, microaggressions are the limit tests Karens run on you, to ultimately determine how racist they can truly be in your presence. In other words, how much of themselves they can actually be without having their mouth gone up in. I’ll continue to divulge with you examples from my experiences in my current situation and examine their racist energy. We will be reintroduced to the antics of Workplace Karen #1 (bka WK1), and introduced to my passive workplace Karen (PWK going forward) and her foolishness.
Table of Contents
Inside the Mind of the Karen
Now you might be thinking, what in the bass-ackwards hell would embolden these Karens to pull this ish; at work no less. Well…..You. Me. Us. We emboldened them, remember? When we thought it was just making small talk asking us about our educational background, our family, our favorite kind of music, but as we discussed in part one, it was really to compile data so they could see what kind of “black person” we were. A microaggressive ruse to determine how they can sneak their blatant racism into the dynamic. Lest we forget the golden rule of thumb: WHITE PEOPLE ALWAYS KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING.
Now that they’ve run their test diagnostics, if-you-will, they start making overtly snide comments about fill-in-the-blank parts of town being ‘crime-riddled and poor’. Y’know, the code words for the predominantly black parts of town. Now they crack jokes or make comments about stereotypical behavior of black people like eating fried chicken or watermelon, as if none of us are vegan or vegetarian or heaven-forbid we like other fruits. Suddenly they have interesting takes on our fashion, our hair, our culture, our legends, our men, our women, our every-damn-thing. Where in the blueberries-in-the-potato salad hell, did they get all this audacity from?
Us. WE gave it to them. While we were thinking all their small talk was in good faith. They were preparing us for the big one all along. The blatant, the overt, the obvious racism. Once again, “we’ve been had,” as our wise, Brother Malcolm X said. They ALWAYS know what they’re doing, family.
Now, I imagine the suspense is killing you by now so, let’s get into it, and examine some scenarios.
When we last discussed WK1, she was micro-aggroing Black History Month by telling me about some white woman who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. One of the more heinous interactions I had with WK1, was around the first few days I started the job. Somehow, we got on the topic of gentrification and what was happening in the communities on Cleveland’s east side. Like most black people, I am opposed to gentrification because I believe it’s a publicity stunt at best.1 WK1 decided to see how racist she could be around me and said this little gem,
When Karen Pushes the Line
“Well it’s a statistical fact that when black people move into a predominantly white neighborhood, crime goes up. Those people move in from their old neighborhoods and they think they can still act the same way.”
Me: “So you’re willing to bet your life that crime goes up because of the presence of black people in predominantly white neighborhoods and NOT because they’re being harassed by police and taken in on BS charges because they ‘don’t belong there’, aren’t having the cops called on them for the same shit they would otherwise just yell at white kids about and then those same people are pressing charges when a simple apology from the white kids suffices in any other situation? You’re willing to bet your entire existence that that ISN’T what’s actually happening which in turn would seem like crime is going up because these ‘crimes’ are getting reported on now?”
If you’re not pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down, WK1 went radio silent. See friends, these white broads are convinced that black women aren’t educated. So when they meet one who is, it f***s with their standard operating system. Like a computer that’s fritzing out. Needless to say, we didn’t speak about anything else after that. Case and point family, WK1 is the norm. She’s the garden variety, stereotypical white co-worker who we’ve all dealt with, or currently are dealing with. She has ALL the boldness, ALL the self-importance and ALL the superiority complex of a never-been-checked Karen.
Passive Workplace Karens
Next, we introduce into the discussion, passive Workplace Karen (PWK). I know, I know “What in the hell is a passive Workplace Karen?” What? You don’t know? Of course you do. She’s the white girl who appears to be cool with the black co-workers. Then once she’s buddy buddy enough, spews her low-key racist shit and gets away with it. My PWK has a mixed race child that she uses as her “I’m not a racist” card. Honestly, I don’t engage with her like that for that reason alone. I’m hip to that phony baloney game by now. Recently, she mentioned how her daughter was upset that her (white) cousins get color in their hair and she wants to get her hair colored sometimes too. PWK expressed how it was hard for her to explain to her daughter why she couldn’t get her hair colored like her cousins.
Noticing this is clearly a ‘you’re a white girl and don’t know shit about black people and our hair’ moment, I of course chimed in briefly to the conversation and said, “my sister had color in her hair all the time when I was growing up.” Another black co-worker mentioned to her that she can get her hair colored, it just depends on where PWK takes her to get it done. PWK, in all the passive racist energy of hers, said something along the lines about only letting certain people “touch her baby’s head”. Now listen ladies, you know, like I know that stylists and beauticians…they’re like mechanics.
When we find one we like, we tend to stick with them. But this chick is a whole ass white chick with a BLACK KINKY HAIRED CHILD. When SHE says it, she just means she ain’t takin’ her to a black salon to get her hair done. PWK, still in this same conversation mind you, goes on to comment about how her kid’s hair used to be wavy, stringy and curly…like a white girl and how much she (meaning PWK) loved it. But now, her daughter’s hair has transitioned into it’s kinkyness, like a black girl’s. Wild guess how PWK feels about it now…? Exactly… suddenly, she hates her daughter’s hair now. She showed a picture and I said, “Oh yeah, I love her hair. It’s like how mine gets after it dries. Afro-puffy” After this, PWK says “why did I have to sleep with a black guy”. Then in an effort to sterilize her racism says, “even though black guys are my type.”
I gave this broad the death stare like nobody’s business. She turned her ass right back around and didn’t say another word to me. That proves to me, what I’ve suspected about these Beckys who sleep with our men and then give birth to black babies, she’s said shit like this in the past, continues to say shit like this regularly AND hasn’t been checked…yet. Overall, all this means to me is PWK is a covert racist at best and if she has black friends, they’re mixed themselves and thus lean into their whiteness, OR they’re a bunch of coons lacking a spine.
In Closing
Family, these examples, these scenarios I’ve shared of my recent experiences, are just a few of MANY of all our workplace stories. These are NOT isolated incidents, these aren’t one-offs. These are white people in the workplace behaving as their privilege and superiority trained them. Even the most well-intentioned white co-workers, let their privilege dribble out the side of their mouth and their real feelings get said out loud. Now in most cases, we can’t go through our entire workday and NOT speak with our open enemy. So in our final discussion, we’ll wrap this topic up and talk about how to deal with workplace Karens while maintaining your professionalism…and your job. Until next time, B1.
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