It wouldn’t be 2022 without the Karen meme. 

 Who is Karen？(Other names: Permit Patty, Barbecue Becky）

Karen symbolizes a usually entitled middle-aged white lady who is always right, but it could be any race and age. They are generally capable of causing harm, especially to people of color. They tend to harass service workers and always threaten to speak to the manager or call the police. Often there is nothing wrong with this. Many immigrants need to learn how to trust authorities and not submit to humiliation and swallow an insult. But excessive use is certainly unnecessary. 

 As a Chinese American, I have to say that one of the Chinese signature characteristics of being indifferent and mellow always invigorates me. I believe this is one of the ugly sides of some Chinese—who enjoy being an onlooker rather than volunteering their help (they usually are fearful of people scam them as it happens many times before; thus, they would rather believe that everyone is faking an injury or medical accident).

 I have to say that I give Karen for that! They are the ones who speak out, but not necessarily for the right reasons! There is a difference between the Central Park Karen and SF Karen. The lady in the San Francisco case worried about the community safety, and the lady Amy Cooper in the Central Park case was only worried about her safety, and this Soho lady in your work is just absolutely just a banana wrongly accused others it’s very about her cell phone in this case. 

My own Karen story. Mask— no good deed goes unpunished

I have my own Karen case. At the beginning of the pandemic, when there is a lot of chaos and a massive PPE shortage, I bought about $200 of masks from a friend who just got back from China. One night in March, I saw a post on Next Door by a nurse begging for respirator filters. I told her that I had some N95 masks, and my husband worked at the hospital next to her, who can drop off some masks the next morning. Much to my surprise, someone on the chat reported us to both hospitals based on the assumption that we were stealing masks. This was based on the limited information in the conversation, and this individual automatically assumed the worst instead of verifying where the masks had come from (it is not illegal to purchase or own medical masks). I didn’t clarify that I bought these masks in my own pockets. The result was someone turned us into the hospitals and accused us of stealing mass from one hospital to another. This person also assumed that I work in the hospital even though I am not. The hospital administration & HR need to learn a lesson (don’t accuse anyone until you have the evidence).

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Treat others the way you wanted to be treated. Let’s all practice a little bit CAREN in our life — the new definition of CAREN means Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-emergencies (The proposed CAREN Act seeks to ban racist 911 calls in San Francisco).