Dear Karen,

Please trust your sweet heart and read this letter…

I watched a news feature this past week about the demonstrations of intolerance over the utterly broken, corrupted, dragged out judicial process that the Taylor family and the Louisville community is enduring after Breonna Taylor’s murder. Then I noticed this sign being held by one of the men in the crowd seeking justice:

This is a big statement. The sign holder has every right to hold it and want others to read it, ideally feeling the weight of the message. Cops Are Just Karens With Guns. Wow.

A few months ago (the day after George Floyd was murdered) I started writing you a letter. I ended up writing a whole two-part book actually — one part about Karens and the memes about Karens in the media, along with my interpretation of root causes of “Karen” behaviors, and one part about ways I have personally wrestled with these root causes in order to do my best to not be a pretentious ignorant bitch.

The goal of this whole effort was to try and reconcile the multifaceted conflicts or “cognitive dissonances” I observe. And I felt these conflicts so keenly that I assumed the vast majority of my fellow Americans were also observing and feeling them.

Maybe the vast majority of us are indeed feeling intensely conflicted (or utterly bullshit) about our access — or lack of access — to power, our life’s potential — or lack thereof — , and the forces at play behind all of it; forces which we can only bring into our consciousness when we are not already overloaded by them; forces which ultimately come down to the longstanding effects of misogyny and racism.

I wanted (still want?) to believe Karen, that even if you are the sort of person acting in ways that have turned my name and the name of other middle aged women into an epic epithet, that you might actually be willing to read my gut wrenching stories and my valiant effort stories, and my achieving balance stories. I want to believe that all the people who could be called “Karen” — so hard hearted about the effects of misogyny and racism as to continue to perpetuate hateful beliefs of white supremacy and to perpetuate, with unexamined white behaviors, evil upon our black and brown and native brothers and sisters — might be willing to look deeply and find within the courage to change and make amends.

I wanted, and still want, to believe Karen, that after you had read these stories about the ways I’ve (or anyone has) gone from being a terrified and traumatized young person to an open eyed, open hearted advocate for change who leads by simple example, that you too might be inspired to face the demons which bind you to a complicit and dysregulated persona — one who may be so traumatized and terrified that you cannot see her or the ways she behaves. It’s hard to know if you would.

Dear Karen, my friend, I know how hard it is to be conflicted about reality and to feel as if you are only safe in your little bubble of society; to do your best to believe you can close your eyes to the hard truths behind all your comforts — from home ownership and job security to the organic food and supplements in your diet. I know how impotent you can feel when you’ve mustered the courage to advocate for change and ended up feeling as if you were just standing naked in the cold. But keep at it. It matters. And naked is okay.

I sense how strong the forces are to keep you quiet and in your little bubble. And I get how exhausting it is to rise up, to keep learning, to keep trying. But unless you wake up to the truth about these forces at play — no, at war — in order to keep you silent and complicit and in your small insignificant life, we as a nation may truly be fucked.

I hope that statement is just the right balance of offensive and motivating so that you, “Karen”, can hear what I, Karen, am saying. I am not interested in shaming you like the hundreds of journalists representing the power brokers who operate the levers of the military industrial complex. I want nothing more than to help you feel like you are not alone. We all feel small and insignificant under the weight of our current imbalance of power reality.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower believed that the military-industrial complex tended to promote policies that might not be in the country’s best interest (such as participation in the nuclear arms race), and he feared that its growing influence, if left unchecked, could undermine American democracy.

All the ways you feel crazy actually do have explanations. The gaslighting that goes on in business and in day to day conversations — that make you think you’re the only one who sees what’s going on because no one else is willing to name it, is a result of centuries of white heteronormativity. Trust that to be true.

Trust that even though there is an amazing unknowable higher power sustaining all life, all species, all 8 billion of us humans, it may not be the white male figure you’ve come to worship.

I’m not asking you to turn your back on what you know to be God or any of the white male figures in your life. In fact, 99 out of 100 of them may be just as terrified and traumatized by the cognitive dissonance as you are. But you may be quite a bit more comfortable using your voice than they are.

So please, I beg you, please feel what is going on before you speak. Let your heart break wide open with the pains of injustice happening everywhere, but most acutely right now in Louisville, Kenosha with the soul-sapping trials of injustice leveled upon Breonna Taylor’s and Joshua Blake’s family and community, and the progressive places where people have been feeling truth together for a long time.

Trust that this fight for justice is not just real, it is righteous. And lastly, trust that for better or worse, we all are in this together.

Okay… maybe you already trust all this to be true… now what? You’ve read articles and actual books made out of paper to educate yourself, you may have even initiated a few civil conversations. Congratulations. Seriously take a moment to feel good about that. Having conversations about the subjects that polarize, divide and alienate, may be the most courageous action we can take right now. Let’s keep doing that.

I’ll close this with an exerpt from my original letter to you:

What are Karens to do? White women with big opinions earned those opinions by getting educated, marrying the “right” guy with a good job and a good family, moving to the town with the best educational prospects for their children, sacrificing wants and needs — if they’d even had any wants or needs that they could have clearly articulated — for these men and children, and they probably do a lot to volunteer for their communities to “do their part” and “give back.” And while these are admirable points, a hard truth about most of this “American Dream” is that the dogged pursuit of the dream leads to insulating oneself from reality, becoming numb and zombified, and perpetuating the figurative or literal walls around oneself — which is The Problem.

“Karens” are always trying to fix problems, with their networks and assumed powers of influence, rather than trying to understand the scope of the problems — the roots, causes and effects, the pain and suffering endured by others. Can one who hasn’t suffered at the scale of a root problem like hunger, houselessness, chronic unemployment, or physical violence, truly understand — viscerally embody and feel — the pain and suffering it carries?

If not, we listen to those who know; those who have answers based on lived experience.

Well, after watching the embarrassment of the current POTUS’ half of the Presidential debate last night, for the short period of time that I could bear to watch his excrutiating, impetuous behavior, I have to say just one more thing, about this man, the ultimate Karen: please do not vote for him. And if you struggle with that notion, please go outside for a long while and breathe; reflect on what you think and feel about the world, not about what your family or colleagues think and feel. Reflect on what is true.

Thank you.

Best wishes,

Karen Willard Ribeiro