The manipulative ‘Karens’ of America have launched a disturbing new TikTok trend in which they claim to be showing off their acting skills by crying on command and then they stop suddenly to smile at the camera.
The videos, many of which can be viewed here, are triggering for some people as they serve as a reminder that white women have historically weaponized their emotions to cause violence and death to Black people.
“White women have historically used their tears and their false victimhood to accuse and vilify people of color, particularly those from the Black community,” one person tweeted. “This ‘trend’ is showing the ability to falsify emotions and manipulate others. This has a dangerous history…”
The past year has seen entitled white women go viral for ‘Karen’ incidents that have become a staple on social media. “Karen-ing” has spawned endless memes and videos of white women acting up in public, and frequently their antics involve racism or some form of discrimination.
Recent examples of Karens causing harm include Amy Cooper, who called the police on a Black birdwatcher and falsely accused him of threatening her. There was another example of a white woman in Oakland who called the police about Black people barbecuing in a park and who could forget the white man and woman who called the police on a man for stenciling “Black Lives Matter” outside his home in chalk.
As previously reported on theGrio, a white woman recently called 911 and falsely accused Black TikTokers of “beating” her.
“I don’t have anything except to say except we’ve been new we know under a system of white supremacy who is the most dangerous. This is not a trend look under the sound this is not a trend this is just our lives,” TikTok user and activist Imani Barbarin posted in response to one of the TikTok videos of a white woman fake crying.
For several Twitter users, these videos have recalled the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till who in 1955 was falsely accused of whistling at a white woman. He was later murdered by a group of white supremacists.
“The trend of white women crying on tiktok and then SNAPPING back to normal is not funny actually,” wrote one Twitter user. “As a black person I am constantly endangered by white women tears. The power those water works have over a black persons LIFE is shown time & time again in cases like Emmet Till.”
Barbarin noted that “this ‘trend’ is chilling. It’s more of a threat.”
Another Twitter user said dealing with white women can be “really scary cause I’m aware of the huge imbalance of power. It’s so easy for them to cry or get upset and people will almost always take their side. Cause of their privilege.”
Author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé tweeted, “The way white women weaponise their tears is the scariest, most dangerous thing ever. I don’t think a lot of white women understand* that a lot of Black people are most scared of them than anyone else,” she wrote. Adding, “** then again maybe there is an understanding, and that is also weaponised.”
A Twitter user with the handle @Euonymine wrote, “The reason ww are able to get away w this is bc of white supremacy & patriarchy together. White men see ww as helpless victims who need to be protected & soothed like children. Patriarchy teaches ww to buy into that helpless role.”
Another user pointed out that there’s a book called White Tears/Brown Scars on this topic.
Meanwhile, BET has dropped the trailer for the upcoming thriller Karen which takes the threat of white fragility to terrorizing new heights, as reported by theGrio.
According to TMZ, in the highly anticipated flick by Coke Daniels, Orange is the New Black star Taryn Manning plays the lead role of “a racist, entitled white woman in the South who terrorizes her new Black neighbors.”
Cory Hardrict and Jasmine Burke play the beleaguered neighbors.
“The feature [is] about Karen Drexler (Manning), a racist white woman who makes it her personal mission to displace the new Black family that has just moved in next door to her,” reads the synopsis, via Deadline.
theGrio’s Blue Telusma contributed to this report.
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