Dear Karen

Karen, we need to talk.

Let’s take a minute to be real. Let’s address what you’ve done and what you’ve become,

because I don’t think it’s what you ever imagined for yourself. I promise to give you whatever

benefit of the doubt is left in me, as well as dole out the straight talk with as much kindness as I can afford.

First off, I have to say that your behavior lately is, frankly, abominable. Calling the cops on Black people for grilling in a public place? Telling a young Black child she can’t sell water on your street? Begging and pleading to the police that a Black man was threatening you while he was actually birdwatching? (I mean, is there a more innocent activity than birdwatching?)

Your actions are patently unforgivable, and you are now suffering the consequences of those

actions. Black men and women are dying, my White sister -- there is no time to spend

investigating who you are as a person beyond what was captured on that tape when our Black brothers and sisters are being murdered in the street. In this day and age, when an action becomes a moment, turns into an idea, and transforms into a movement in a matter of minutes, we need to disavow your actions with urgency and precision before it lands in the wrong hands and becomes something even more dangerous.

What’s done is done, Karen, and there’s no way to undo it. I’m not here to explain that to you -- I’m here to reveal the ugly truth of how you got to where you are today. I’m here to baptize you in the waters of a new age. I’m here to recruit you.

There is something in you that we need, something that you are too afraid to acknowledge or have yet to fully grasp. Something that you’ve been taught to hate about yourself, but, girl, it’s there and it is a veritable monster that is threatening us all.

The Man is clever. He’s somehow managed to breed this monster, chain it to your ankle, and

convince you that it doesn’t even exist. In fact, he probably hasn’t even had to do the work to

deliver that message to you; he swindled your Great- Great Grandmother into believing this lie decades ago, and is just sitting back to watch the dominos fall. Not only did the generations of women before you, believing wholeheartedly in the beautiful lies they were told, happily chain you to this unseeable beast, but the scars from it’s violence have settled into your DNA. You carry this creature in every way imaginable, and you can’t even see. And it’s destroying you. It’s destroying all of us.

What is this forbidding, violent, invisible monster? It’s your anger, Karen.

I’m not denying or invalidating the source of your anger, Karen: you’ve been assaulted, ignored, raped, kidnapped, beaten, mocked, and abandoned by the Man. I get that. You are not, however, excused. Can’t you see that you’ve mishandled and misdirected your greatest power, your rage, when it could be used to disarm the one who hurt you? Who hurts us all? I mourn the anger you’ve abused and neglected, the power that to you is only worth conjuring when a Black body offends your artificially constructed sense of superiority. I know it’s there -- from behind the phone camera lens, I see a bright fire in your eyes clouded by the stench and smog of unwarranted hatred for your innocent Black target.

It’s taking far too long for you to get it, Karen. You’ve been given every chance to let go of The Lie and have either ignored or blatantly repudiated all of those chances. When the Man put his hands on you, you shrugged. When he mocked you, you laughed along. When he hurt your sisters, you stayed silent. When your sisters wrote, preached, screamed, protested, and beseeched for your understanding, you turned away. When your Black brother was choked to death under the White man’s boot, you forgave and you forgot. And on, and on, and on.

And every time you placate the Man, he takes a piece of you. Maybe you’ve learned to break off the pieces and hand them over because it’s easier and less painful. Maybe you think you enjoy it, because it’s less weight for you to carry. Maybe you don’t see any other way. But these are not legitimate excuses, because even though your ancestors did not give you the tools to see The Truth, your sisters and brothers have. They’re showing you right now -- in Minneapolis, New York City, and L.A. They’re handing you the sharpest and most innovative tools on a golden platter, and you’re ignoring them. You’re actually turning on them, hating them.

How could you,Karen?

You’re out of excuses, Karen. Those things the Man adorned you with are not strings of pearls -- they’re wrought iron chains. And when you weaponize your anger against your Black brothers and sisters, your tears and your shame are not admissible in a trial of your peers. What we’ll remember is that despite the many chances you were given to embrace your anger as a weapon against the patriarchy that burdened you with it, you decided instead to serve your Master, who chains us all.

We need you, Karen. There’s still time for you to be redeemed, sister.

You in?