The Only “Illness” Is White Privilege

“Get Her Away From Me” Karen Edition

DarkSkyLady
7 min readJul 18, 2021
White tears. Photo by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash

The video that went viral on social media shows a Karen—Abigail Elphick’s white tantrum alter—having what some have called a mental breakdown. There is humor but also fear because Abigail shows how far white women will go to get their way. Like the video on TikTok showing white girls crying on cue, white women can be deadlier than white men. For the same reasons white liberals are a larger danger for many Black people and people of color. They come in the guise of innocence. They come as “allies”, until they aren’t given what they want. Whether that be a thank you, feeling comfortable, they will unleash their full white privilege then.

White people love attributing mental health issues to white women and men acting racist as though the two are synonymous. It’s a harmful lie meant to shield the perpetrator of harm from the brunt of accountability. Put simply, the stages of white Karendom bears striking similarities to a child who rarely hears the words no. Her behavior is abhorrent, but the society that gave her the belief that all must bow before her white women status is equally at fault. And at the helm of society is white supremacy.

Granted some of us may have not seen the whole video. I saw the opening of the second, which showed Abigail on the ground shaking and I…

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DarkSkyLady

Black/Puerto Rican creative non-binary. Spouts nonsense that occasionally makes sense. they/them