Source: Spencer Platt / Getty
A new video from the racist confrontation between a “Karen” Uber passenger and her Black driver in Washington, D.C., has sparked speculation that the woman shown unabashedly spewing the N-word is not white, contradicting earlier reports.
The video, recorded by the driver, provides a vantage point not shown in the widely shared footage that was shot by a neighbor. On it, the still-unidentified “Karen” appears to be a woman of color, whether she wants to acknowledge it or not.
It was somewhat of a plot twist to what seemingly started off as a routine “Karen” video in which women weaponize their whiteness in a disingenuous effort to establish the upper hand in a given situation.
The first video was posted to social media on Wednesday and swiftly resulted in the woman being banned by Uber. The minute-long clip was recorded in front of an apparent apartment building in Northwest Washington after a resident overheard the woman’s loud and racist voice berating the driver over a phone not being plugged in.
The woman is shown yelling directly in the driver’s face, calling him everything from the N-word to a “slave.” She repeatedly told him, “I’m your boss.”
“I asked for a phone charger, you fucking ignorant n***er,” she yells at the driver.
“You’re still a slave,” the woman said at another point.
The driver’s own video gave people a chance to see the woman in question up close and personal.
The driver can be heard referring to the woman as “Karen” and encouraging her to wait for the police to arrive and to repeat the racist epithets she had been calling him.
She eagerly obliges on the latter, not the former.
The comments on Twitter responding to the driver’s video were seemingly united in one thing: the “Karen” is not a white woman.
“That girl is not white and she is a racist,” one person tweeted.
Another person encouraged the Karen to “check herself on 23 and me,” a company that offers DNA testing to verify ancestry.
However, one aspect being missed here is that the woman said in the video that she is white.
“I’m white and you’re not,” she taunted the driver.
Regardless of the woman’s ethnic background, it would be naive to suggest that people of color cannot employ racist approaches when dealing with Black people. The artist formerly known as Kanye West should be more than enough proof of that assertion, what with his ready association with open white supremacists.
Meanwhile, whoever the D.C. Karen is, she has been banned from using Uber ever again.
“The behavior seen in the video is sickening and has no place on the Uber platform or anywhere in society,” Uber told the Daily Beast in a statement. “We’ve been in touch with the driver, and the rider’s account has been banned from the app.”
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Karen Who Told Terrell Owens ‘You’re A Black Man Approaching A White Woman’ Is Charged With Crime
