*********************************
There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
*********************************
Andre BrockAndré L. Brock, associate professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was quoted in the article "How Karen Became a Meme, and What Real-life Karens Think about It" on CNN.com May 30, 2020. His scholarship includes published articles on racial representations in videogames, black women and weblogs, whiteness, blackness, and digital technoculture, as well as groundbreaking research on Black Twitter.
"It's always about the gaze," Brock explained. "And the desire to control what's in the gaze."
In other words? It's about a desire by some white women to exert control over black folks -- just as it was during slave times, just as it was in 1992 and just as it persists today, he said.
Names like Karen, or Becky? It's an act of resistance by Black folks, Brock said. It puts a name to the behavior and acts as a way to gain solidarity over an injustice, maybe laugh about it and go about your day.
