Karens and Ice-Cube

Yesterday I learned that I cannot make jokes about menopause when the topic of conversation is Karens, because it’s sexist.

*A Karen, if anyone doesn’t know, is a racist white woman who has lost her mind. She is a tRump supporter. Legend has it that the first such woman caught on tape was named Karen.

Despite my own post-menopausal condition, I have no right to joke about it. It doesn’t matter if the joke was somewhat self-directed. I’ll see if I can upset you now by explaining. Someone posted yet another a Karen video on twitter. (We don’t know what happened before the video started.) A rage-filled middle-aged white woman was screaming (like a wild animal,) walking with her hands reaching toward a cop who backed away while warning her to stop walking. She didn’t stop and continued her battle cry. Needless to say, he was more restrained than he would have been if she’d had any pigment in her skin. The video ends after he tases her- he had no choice. We never see that kind of self-control in videos with law enforcement and people of color.

My mistake: I said I can relate to her level rage, misguided as it is, but I could never be a Karen, even in menopause. That’s it. My critic believes I had implied that menopause made her a Karen. NO. I implied that without my estrogen I have experienced that level of rage but controlled it. It was a joke. It clearly wasn’t funny, but why was it so offensive to my critic? Hormones, whether a testosterone tirade or menopause madness, make people crazy. If it had been a white man exhibiting rage and I had said something about steroid abuse then my comment would have been ignored like most are.

Somebody is always going to be offended by my humor. I also learned yesterday not to apologize for it. It only gives the offended party another opportunity to reiterate how wrong I am. Humor is my coping mechanism. I use it to diffuse situations. It’s how I survived my childhood, teens, twenties, etc. Some people think I’m funny, some people don’t know when I’m joking. What is funny is subjective.

*This is not a Karen.👇🏼 Also the woman is protesting tRump’s presence in Scotland, and the police officer seems nice. The picture has no relevance to my post, but I felt like adding it.

I am at a point in my life that I am fine with losing a reader. If you don’t understand my love of irony you are welcome to ignore me. Read elsewhere. You have nothing to gain from reading my words, and I can not waste time explaining everything I say, when I think I’ve been clear enough. Life is too short. We could be hit by a meteor, or tRump could steal another election. My energy can be better spent than on making sure no one is offended by one of my endless attempts at humor.

I recently saw an interview with rapper Ice-Cube on AM Joy. (I didn’t really learn anything yesterday, did I?) I’m about to cross the line of what is safe to say— again.

I am not black.

I don’t pretend to know what it feels like to be the victim of racism. I do know what it felt like to be a ten-year-old, (several decades ago,) hanging out with my friends in my Chicago neighborhood (north-side), when a squad car pulled over and the police singled out my Cuban friend to rough him up. The officer used one hand to twist my friend’s arm painfully up behind his back and put his body weight to use pressing his forearm against my friend’s head, face against a brick wall, while he warned him about “the next time,” and “if he was alone.” We were ten, and I was horrified. Compared with what we see today, it was nothing.

When the cops finally left, my friend was visibly embarrassed, of all things. I’m sure he had other feelings pulsing through him, but I could see that having his friends witness that was as bad as the attack itself— which is what it was, an attack.

We can all pinpoint a handful of events in our lives that changed us. That was one of the events in my life that changed me. I had two that year.

I am aware of racism and have been witness to it’s uptick since tRump has defiled the White House. I can see as well as anyone that white supremacy is out of the closet. I am empathetic toward victims of racism the same way I am empathetic to victims of sexual violence, which I have earned the right to talk about. I am empathetic to the point of anxiety and depression. I feel too much empathy.

I’m a middle-aged postmenopausal white woman, but I am not a Karen, and I am not a racist. I want this nightmare to end. White men who oppress to feel good need to be taken down.

For Mr. Cube (Ice) to encourage black people not to vote until one of the parties has done something for them is infuriating. That is what he did on AM Joy, and what he is doing in this tweet which he ends #FuckYouPayMe.

I know it’s a metaphor, but this jackass HAS BEEN PAID by the GOP because he is among the few people who are wealthy enough to have hit the tax cut lottery.

He is sending out a message that will persuade people not to vote, and the result will hurt everyone, but Ice-Cube will keep his tax cut. Very republican attitude— quid pro quo. #FuckYouAndYourMoney

We can not afford for ANYONE to sit this election out. Hard as it might be to believe, Trump and his party are acting with the same level of restraint we saw with the cop in the Karen video. tRump’s restraint will be unleashed if he manages to steal another election and the harm will be immediate.

Women will lose reproductive rights and that will give these men the power they want to have over women. We will all lose Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. There will be no healthcare coverage for anyone with a preexisting condition- which is everyone. The wealth gap will spread, the climate crisis will escalate, and I can’t imagine how much more another win will embolden neo-Nazis.

Nothing good will happen.

How about we all- every age group, every race, every sex- #FuckingVote and pay ourselves.