A Karen Comeuppance: Ignorance Boomerangs

I ran across a story on Facebook that is both infuriating and satisfying. 

Ms. Jamia Driver was called into a meeting with a Team Lead over a shirt she wore, this is the shirt 

The man is artist and painter Jean Michel Basquiat who died at 27 years old. This will come into play later. In a series of images, captured from Facebook, we are a fly on the wall as Ms. Driver's immediate boss that I'll call Team Lead (since the supervisor comes in later, I'll call Karen the Team Lead) 

So let's pick this apart. A black man on her shirt must either be "known to the law" and automatically assumes this person is not of "positive career" and thinks he's a rapper. This shows her negativity and assumption that all rappers are not of positive careers. What is wrong with having a rapper on your shirt? SOME would say having a Biggie Smalls or Tupac shirt is not exhibiting a positive career, while others would disagree. She also says "I'm not familiar with THOSE KINDS OF PEOPLE" Oh, you're not familiar with black people and black culture? So why the write up? 

Now let's move to the pointed part of the exchange, when asked "Who is he?" Karen doesn't know and her assumptions come through even further. She is writing Ms Driver up over something she is ignorant of. How much effort would it have taken to ask "Who's the guy on your shirt"? She asks The Karen are painters and artists positive careers, to which she replies "Yes" then proceeds to tell her who Basquiat is, and she has to Google him 

Even after apologizing and disregarding the write up, Karen tries to smooth over her racist comment of "those kinds of people" but Ms Jamia Driver is NOT having it. What happens next is mind numbing

This is not an apology. "I am sorry I assumed the worst and offended you with my ignorance" is taking OWNERSHIP of the issue. Karen simply tells her I'm sorry YOU were offended. This is that idiotic non apology people who complain about being politically correct use to absolve themselves of responsibility. Karen was likely reprimanded about her comment and wanted to smooth over the entire thing but this was NOT the way to go. Karen brought this on herself without consulting Ms. Driver about Basquiat. It could've been a more positive learning experience 

Watch Karen accuse Ms. Driver of being unprofessional. Since I wasn't in the room when this happened and I am going off of the text provided, I think Ms. Driver was definitely professional and in the right if HR reprimanded her and Karen had to reach out to Ms. Driver to try and smooth it over. But the last line "You were eager to write me up due to your ignorance but I was wrong about going to HR for YOUR STEREOTYPICAL COMMENT" Karen was the one that escalated it and got the backlash she deserved 

Now Karen steps on a landmine of her own. "I didn't think you were sensitive" is code for I thought you would just shrug off my offensive comment and would do nothing about it. Being cognizant of someone's feelings isn't a bad thing, having hurt feelings isn't a bad thing, HOW YOU HANDLE YOURSELF AFTERWARD is what matters. Ms. Driver is definitely handling this professionally even if she used some profanity

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Karen keeps on digging herself a deeper hole and I am stymied by this. She wants to talk after the meeting but there is nothing left to say. If someone wanted to meet me by my car after work and they work with me my first question would be "Why can't we talk about it at work?" My guard would be up too

Now we find out the reason that she reached out to Ms. Jamia Driver, this was an ongoing thing and though Ms. Driver didn't know, it wasn't the first time someone reported her to HR. She also did the write up IN FRONT OF CUSTOMERS and that is a no no. Further, she tries AGAIN to absolve herself by saying everyone's too sensitive. 

Look at the Karen when she suffers the consequences of her own actions. She blames other people and likely says  "Don't break the law and you'll be okay" but the moment it applies to them, they blame the person that held them to account

This is classic of a person that's never been held to account and don't care that all of this stemmed from something THEY did. These are the same people of privilege that probably had connections and thought they'd save her. This shows the disconnect with White America that believes they have to agree that something is racist in order for it to be racist and Black America that knows racism when they're experiencing it 

White America has to deal with the factual history of race in this country. It isn't just a white hood, it's a MAGA hat, defending a police officer regardless of the facts, and even repeating academic racism. 

I'm glad this Karen got her comeuppance, but what bothers me is that there are many people like her that don't get corrected in the workplace. 

I applaud Ms. Jamie Driver on getting a terrible boss sacked!