Reflections from a REAL-LIFE KAREN

"Keep your diseased ass out of other countries and don't use the callousness of their profit driven governments as justification, you pasty pallid plague bearer!"

You can listen to me read this essay HERE

Today, a memory came up in my Facebook notifications and it kind of blew me away and I just had to pause in my writing of Traversing the Land of Fanatics, Part Two, to share it.

Bari Weiss

Two years ago, at the time I wrote this, I had recently returned to the United States from living in Egypt. Bari Weiss had written her resignation letter from the New York Times around the same time. In her letter she says: “My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m ‘writing about the Jews again.’

She goes on to say, “I do not understand how you have allowed this kind of behavior to go on inside your company in full view of the paper’s entire staff and the public.”

I don’t understand it either. I will never understand why people knowingly hurt one another for absolutely no good reason. For anyone with a ray of sunshine in their heart, and I’ve got quite a few rays of sunshine, it’s impossible to accept this kind of behavior. And it is something I will always stand up against.

It’s good to remind ourselves how we got here. Reading this post over again gave me more than a few chills. I wrote it almost a year before I ever started writing on Substack. At that time, I never would have dreamed I would be where I am today, researching these issues so deeply and building this amazing community. I’m so thankful for this writing journey and the opportunity to share it with my readers.

So, here you are, what I wrote 2 years ago on Facebook:

“Karen”

Hello everyone. As a writer named KAREN, I was motivated to write this, partly because a host of literary luminaries recently signed a letter out of concern for censorship. Naturally, their lives have been picked apart for doing so. And, true to what I'm saying in this post, some of them have backtracked. Most of them are so powerful already, they aren't worried about backlash. But, if even some of them have been so intimidated as to retract their statements, what does that bode for the rest of us little guys?

It's extremely important at this time for writers to stand up against censorship and bullying. It now happens that just by wording something in the wrong manner, even with the best intentions, or simply by holding an opposing view to the "thought police," a writer's entire career can be ruined. I just don't care. If someone tries to bully me or threaten me, it fuels my determination. That's not to say I am not willing to listen to reasonable discourse and change my mind about things if an argument is presented to me that makes sense. On the other hand, I have the right to keep my opinion, even after discourse. Maybe one day over time I will change my mind. Maybe one day over time you will change your mind. Maybe neither of us will ever change our minds. No one has the right to force anyone else to think like they do. In fact, I would rather stand alone and fight that battle to the death, I am not kidding, than give in to intimidation. This hate I see all around me. I've had enough.

There will be those who will say, just let it go. It's not a big deal. Keep your "positivity." But why should those who are attacked remain silent? Things start from small seeds, and they grow. I wouldn't ever want it to be said that I remained silent.

So okay, I was in a Facebook group for women travel writers. I should explain it is a large group with a few thousand members with editors and publishers, so it isn't some little obscure group. Groups like this, in some cases, can make or break a writer's career. Saying the right thing can get a writer published in her dream publication, while saying the wrong thing can get a writer blacklisted so she is never published again. I've since removed myself from the group for the sake of my blood pressure.

Anyway, another member had posted something about how she wanted to go to Thailand or a similar place with her kids and husband and stay for six months or so, since that part of the world was opening in August. She thought it might be a wonderful experience for her family and a chance to just get away and she asked for advice.

A few people encouraged her to go for it and a few expressed cautions. And then it started, the accusations of selfishness to expose others to COVID, the white privilege of going to a brown country, etc. I generally don't comment in these groups. In fact, I don't think I've engaged in years, since I got eaten alive once in another binders group (these are all women) and it was so brutal, I didn't want to go through that again. I know there are many people who feel the same, they've stopped talking out of fear of retaliation. And that's just sad. Since my latest stay in Egypt, I've grown a tougher skin. So, I decided to comment.

I suggested she should research, get international health insurance and if it seemed feasible, go for it, it would be an incredible experience for her children. As a child, I had such experiences of my family traveling the world and I am so thankful for it. Having recently returned from spending 4 months in Luxor, Egypt during the pandemic, I mentioned how people were suffering economically, that they relied on tourism to survive and that they really didn't care what color you were, they would be glad to see you back.

Well, all hell broke loose. Now, let me just say, I left kindergarten a long time ago, and I am not impressed or affected by name-calling or bullying. I refuse to engage in it myself. None of these people know me, nor do I know them. None of them know that I spent almost three years of my life in Luxor. They don't know what I did there. I used to think I should try to let these people understand who I am, but I realized from past experience that they don't care. All that matters is that they are in control of the "narrative." These are liberals, btw. It's shocking because I always thought liberals believed in free thought and free expression. Sadly, I am beginning to change my mind. And before someone bristles, let me add that I'm aware it happens on both sides. I'm not on a "side." I'm making an observation.

Here is one response to my mild-mannered suggestion:

"Keep your diseased ass out of other countries and not use the callousness of their profit driven governments as justification, you pasty pallid plague bearer."

Now, besides the hate-speech, which I don't even know how in a civilized world, educated people still talk like this (no one objected btw), I found the comment extremely ironic and hilariously hypocritical, since this is a TRAVEL WRITERS GROUP and all these people have happily been traveling to these countries with their "profit driven governments" so THEY CAN PROFIT from writing articles about these places. By their own admission, they THEMSELVES should stop exploiting these people and making money off of them—just stay home!

Next comment adds on to that hypocrisy:

"...do whatever the fuck you want. Play the role of the white savior, boasting publicly that you're helping the locals with your money. ...Expose everyone to your germs including essential workers at home and abroad. Okay."

This is the height of PRIVILEGE, that this person assumes she can speak for all the people, everywhere, outside of the western world, because, oh, she has the inside scoop that they don't want my money. All the while, she will take money from their government or western magazine catering to rich white people, to go to their country to write about them! And she will use her white American dollars to pay locals for their services.

Not to mention we were talking about countries that were now open to tourists coming back. Let's take that guy in Luxor, or wherever, who makes his money sailing tourists on a felucca. I am sure he would be so thankful the woke crowd saved him from the terrible tourists. Because actually, it's these "intellectuals" who think they are the saviors of those who are beneath them and therefore, the “intellectuals” have the right to speak on everyone else's behalf. Completely erroneous, because all I heard while I was in Luxor was how the people genuinely hoped the tourists could return soon. Of course, they hoped that. They don't live in a fairytale woke world. They live in their very real world, where that man and so many others were having a hard time feeding his family. Anyone in his position would want to earn money in the way they know how. Tourism is all over the world, but now, because these thought police have so decided, it is Evil, no nuance about it. Yes, of course we can have an academic conversation about it, but that has nothing to do with the REAL WORLD, where people exist who want to feed their families. Only someone who has the luxury of "sheltering in place" would turn around and say that those who don't have that luxury, should not be given the tourists "tainted" money. The arrogance is beyond belief.

And I should add, that is not to say there aren't real issues to be addressed with tourism and colonialism and all of that but right here right now, I reiterate, people who need to earn a living don't care about that. They might resent, not like, even hate tourists but they still need to feed their families. So that's a whole other complex issue that we can't solve on Facebook and one I am well aware of. My experience of living in Luxor opened my eyes to a lot of things I didn't know before, and I would never have known if I hadn't taken the time to live there.

Sailing on the Nile in a felucca

Besides which, none of these women knew what I was doing in Egypt or that, in fact, I wasn't a tourist anyway. And on what basis was it assumed I was exposing anyone to the plague??? It's scary to me how people do not really pay attention to anything except their own narrow view. And these are intelligent people, with high degrees no doubt. As the professor said in C. S. Lewis’ book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, "I wonder what they do teach them at these schools?"

Then, shaming me because, you know, history, as one woman commented:

"Huh I wonder if anything happened in history that led to these material conditions of dependency and exploitation hmmmm..."

Again, the hypocrisy of someone who profits from the tourist industry saying something like this is baffling. Please, practice what you preach! And please write your next piece in that upscale travel magazine apologizing to all the people who've been exploited and explain to them how, for their own good, you are announcing that all tourism will now stop. Because of, you know...history. It's better that they starve because you are "woke" and they need to get with the program.

And of course, I couldn't escape this one:

"Don't be such a Karen...Karen."

Or this one:

"Calling out problematic behavior is not attacking.... though it's very Karen-y to claim it."

Since when is it now acceptable for marauding bands of thought police to call out "problematic behavior" (I mean, attack) strangers who dare disagree with them. Not to mention, people will now "unfriend" people who have been their friends for years for having dissenting viewpoints.

These wokists are embolden because they see it all the time in the media. The press now searches back twenty years into a person's past to destroy them. No one is immune from character assassination. NO ONE. And listen well, because yes, as I said at the beginning, I am just a little guy, we are mostly all just little guys, but the implications are so much bigger. Speak out, people, please.

One of the women has this as her cover photo:

"BE MEAN TO THEM ON FACEBOOK" Sun Tzu, The Art of War

This is not a teenager. This is an adult, well-educated writer. Twist the truth to suit your purpose because last time I checked Sun Tzu didn’t say that.

I prefer the ACTUAL truth:

"A LEADER LEADS BY EXAMPLE, NOT BY FORCE." Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I have trained in martial arts for over thirty years. In fact, I am a 2nd degree black belt in Tang Soo Do. Fight for truth. Fight for peace. Do not be afraid.

THE END!

Except of course, it wasn’t the end. I kept on writing and writing. And now, I’ve been thrown off Twitter.

Interesting because some big wigs are being invited back. More on that later…perhaps.