Protesting according to Karen

(Lindsay Johnson)

According to The Guardian, “Karen is a middle-aged white woman with an asymmetrical bob asking to speak to the manager, who happens to be as entitled as she is ignorant.”

Vox reports that Karen “has a ‘can I speak to the manager’ haircut and a controlling, superior attitude to go along with it.”

Urban Dictionary describes Karen as “the stereotypical name associated with rude, obnoxious and insufferable middle-aged white women.”

Keds pounding the pavement, these Karens, Kaetlynns and Ashleighs clutch to homemade signs with fierce determination. Signs reading, “Open Our Beaches,” “Stop Masking the Healthy,” and a new twist on a classic phrase, “My Body, My Risk, My Choice.” Draped in Trump 2020 swag, the self-proclaimed patriots demand “FREEDOM,” with some going so far as to link social distancing to communism.

Huntington Beach saw a substantial turnout in protestors on April 17. The ‘March for Freedom’ took place Friday afternoon near 126 Main Street, where supporters of the movement gathered, completely ignoring the six feet apart rule.

In a proclamation given to CBSLA, a Karen by the name of Paula Doyle, a resident on Costa Mesa, was reported saying, “I just want to go back to normal. I don’t think there’s a reason for this.” While the reason may be lost on her, it is not to the thousands of lives being affected every day by the virus.

To Karen, it is always about me, myself, and I, and to hell with the rest and public safety. Another Huntington Beach protester told The Sun, “Newsom has overstepped the constitution. My right to assemble, to gather, and access the beach.” Besides the fact that the right to access the beach was never once stated in the constitution, this is just one more example of the many egocentric citizens who join together across the country to call an end to an order that was put in place to protect them.

These are the same Karens many see while employed in the service industry. Karens who would like to speak to your manager because her extra side of ranch didn’t come out in a timely fashion, despite you having six other tables. See, while the sign says, “We Want to Go Back to Work,” some might argue a woman like Karen really wants to go back to having someone work for her; she’s more than likely cooked everything in Reese Witherspoon’s cookbook and giving herself a pedicure was only fun for so long. So beneath the guise of liberty and constitutional rights, these infamous hair icons fight tooth and unmanicured nail, despite the still increasing number of deaths due to COVID-19, to take back the America they knew and loved before this inconvenient global crisis.

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