In light of all the media coverage on Derek Chauven’s three-count murder conviction for killing George Floyd and the perpetual conversations about the unnecessary deaths of unarmed black people who encounter the police, we would be remiss not to enter “Karens” into the national dialog.
There’s never a shortage of them, with their asymmetrical hair cuts, frizzy ends, peculiar fashion sense, fanny packs, and oh yeah — racism. Thanks to smartphones, we are privy to witnessing countless Kar-encounters, captured on video like a rabid animal caught in the wild, presented by NatGeo.
The latest repulsive video to surface features said Karen —a white woman at a Virginia IHOP insulting a group of black soldiers. It’s one of the more bizarre Karen confrontations that began allegedly after the woman first offered to pay for the soldiers’ meals. Somehow that quickly escalated to her accusing the soldiers of stealing her money.
Video of the incident ended up on TikTok, and Youtube, posted by a soldier who recorded it. He was among three fellow soldiers trying to enjoy their meal before “Pancake Paula” flipped out, began to harass the military men and got into the face of another patron —identified as a retired, out-of-uniform airman.
At some point the woman flops down at their table refusing to let the men peacefully leave. Flatly, you can hear the soldiers ask the woman to leave them alone, as the retired airman comes to their defense and tells the woman to leave the restaurant.
To which she ultimately replied,
“Is this your restaurant, motherf*cker? I will f*cking drop you! You wanna go? You wanna go?” In response, the man says, “Oh? Drop me? Really?”
Joe Richard, director of public affairs for Fort Belvoir, said in a statement to Military Times that people commonly offer to pay for the meals of service members as a thank you for all they do. In this instance, The woman reportedly placed $30 on the soldiers’ table. Then moments later, she took $24 back; only 6 dollars remained as she left. Next, according to Richard, the woman returned to the restaurant once again and began harassing the four soldiers, accusing them of stealing her money. She then further insulted them, exclaiming, “You guys are sh*tbags.”
Her abuse continued, as you can hear her in the video taunting while FINALLY being escorted out, “Are you the thin blue line, are you BLM, are you Antifa?”
Listen, I’m not sure what this woman was going through on this day. Nor do I care. All I see when I watch the encounter on video is yet another example of black people, minding their own damn business, wanting to be left alone … but apparently, such a request is too much for Karens to comprehend. Of course, as expected, my respectful military brothers left without further engaging the whacky woman.
And that brings me to a final point on the matter, one I have made before and will make again. The mischaracterization of African Americans as angry, violent confrontational people is absolute rubbish. The truth of the matter is, if we were any of those things, there would be a trail of dead Karens from here to Montezuma. Trust!
On the contrary, instead of harassing black people, racists —Karens especially, should be thanking us for our 400 years of gracious patience while dealing with all their skin color-driven bullsh*t.
It’s exhausting living like this, but it is what it is, so I’ll just go on ahead and add “eating pancakes” to the growing list of things we can’t do while being black. Case in point, just watch the videos below.
This post is an opinion piece by one Contributing Writer for Instinct Magazine and may not reflect the opinion of the magazine or other Contributing Writers.
