Anti-“Karen” Design

These designs are inspired by actual events that occured recently. It caused personal trauma and immense shaking anger that I still feel when I share my story. Here is my story:

On May 27, 2021, I was returning home after volunteering in Japantown. I backed up my car into my driveway, turned off the car and was about to call my neighbor’s caretaker. My garage space is a tandem parking space and when the caretaker is here, I let her park in the space. But, she didn’t fully back in so she was blocking both spaces and I was going to call her to switch spaces.

As I was pulling my phone out, a middle-aged, White woman started tapping on my car window. I asked her what was wrong and she proceeded to tell me that I was illegally parked and blocking the sidewalk. I told her that this was my driveway and I would be gone in about 2 minutes as I was about to park my car. She then told me that I needed to parallel park in front of my driveway because she needed the full 10 feet of sidewalk so she could walk. She said she didn’t feel comfortable walking around the car into the street.

A man (witness), who takes his break in my driveway most days, happened to be there when I arrived home and told the woman that I do this everyday and I would be gone in less than 5 minutes. She then exclaimed, “Shut up! I’m talking. He (referring to me) has a mouth. He can speak for himself.”

I then told the woman that I would move forward so that she had more than 6 ft of walking space, which I did, but that didn’t stop her from complaining that I still needed to parallel park and that I was still threatening her and that she was going to call the City on me. At that point, I called her a “Karen” to which she asked what that meant and I said, “You. A White lady who complains all the time.” The man told me that I shouldn’t have said that to which I appologized to her for calling her that.

But, that didn’t stop her. She proceeded to call the City on me saying that I was being racist and sexist to her. Just to clarify, I am Asian, a minority. How could I be racist or sexist? I called her exactly what she is: a lady, a White lady. How can a minority be racist by calling a White person: White?

So as she was calling the City on me, I called the police on her as I felt targeted by this person. While waiting for the police to show up, I recorded her making up lies by saying that I tried to hit her with my car. I was parked. How could I possibly hit her? Also, she ran up to me, which if anything is an attempt for insurance fraud.

When the police showed up, it was an Asian officer and a White officer. I spoke to the White officer who told me that I shouldn’t have to deal with this nonsense and that this was crazy. What frustrated me was the Asian officer. He sided with her by saying that they weren’t going to give me a citation for blocking the sidewalk even though my car is in my own driveway. I think to try to diffuse the situation, they pleaded that I parallel park because the “Karen” was watching down the street on the street.

The fact that this event happened during Asian Heritage Month and the police did nothing to the “Karen” still bewilders me. Was it a White person directly attacking an Asian? Probably not. Was it a targeted incident? I think so. There were other cars on the sidewalk down the street, but she targeted me. I know it bad to think this way, but I hope she is one of those anti-vax people who didn’t get a vaccine and needs to contract Covid and just go away. I don’t want her to leave the earth, just enough where she can no longer speak anymore.

Immediately after the incident happened, I put my story on social media. What calms me down is designing so I created some t-shirt designs, posters to combat the “Karens.” I even have iron-on t-shirt printer paper so I had a t-shirt ready within the next hour featuring her face and what a “Karen” is.