Uber’s DEI Chief on Leave After Complaints Over ‘Don’t Call Me Karen’ Seminar
“We have heard that many of you are in pain and upset by yesterday’s Moving Forward session.”
How about we stop talking about race and making it a big deal?
Uber’s DEI Chief Bo Young Lee is on leave after workers described the “Don’t Call Me Karen” seminar as insensitive to those people of color:
Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s chief executive, and Nikki Krishnamurthy, the chief people officer, last week asked Bo Young Lee, the head of diversity, “to step back and take a leave of absence while we determine next steps,” according to an email on Thursday from Ms. Krishnamurthy to some employees that was viewed by The New York Times.
“We have heard that many of you are in pain and upset by yesterday’s Moving Forward session,” the email said. “While it was meant to be a dialogue, it’s obvious that those who attended did not feel heard.”
Because white women don’t have problems? The media and the left only portray white people as inherently racist. But whatever:
Employees’ concerns centered on a pair of events, one last month and another last Wednesday, that were billed as “diving into the spectrum of the American white woman’s experience” and hearing from white women who work at Uber, with a focus on “the ‘Karen’ persona.” They were intended to be an “open and honest conversation about race,” according to the invitation.
But workers instead felt that they were being lectured on the difficulties experienced by white women and why “Karen” was a derogatory term and that Ms. Lee was dismissive of their concerns, according to messages sent on Slack, a workplace messaging tool, that were viewed by The Times.
The concerns popped up after the first event that took place in April:
Several weeks after that first event, a Black woman asked during an Uber all-hands meeting how the company would prevent “tone-deaf, offensive and triggering conversations” from becoming a part of its diversity initiatives.
Ms. Lee fielded the question, arguing that the Moving Forward series was aimed at having tough conversations and not intended to be comfortable.
“Sometimes being pushed out of your own strategic ignorance is the right thing to do,” she said, according to notes taken by an employee who attended the event. The comment prompted more employee outrage and complaints to executives, according to the Slack messages and the employee.
Because white women live a pristine and carefree life without any care in the world. We’re not allowed to be uncomfortable when we hear people lecture us about how the color of our skin automatically makes us racist and live in a world of privilege. Because I never had to work for anything.
Give me a break. You either talk about all races or none.
The second event is when things blew up:
But in Slack groups for Black and Hispanic employees at Uber, workers fumed that instead of a chance to provide feedback or have a dialogue, they were instead being lectured about their response to the initial Don’t Call Me Karen event.
“I felt like I was being scolded for the entirety of that meeting,” one employee wrote.
Another employee took issue with the premise that the term Karen shouldn’t be used.
“I think when people are called Karens it’s implied that this is someone that has little empathy to others or is bothered by minorities others that don’t look like them. Like why can’t bad behavior not be called out?” she wrote.
I don’t have to explain the “Karen” thing, do I? I had no idea it was only for white women. I use it for any woman who complains about the stupidest and most mundane things. How dare I be color-blind!
Kellen Browning at The New York Times has a great point: “The concerns raised about the events underscored the difficulties that companies face as they navigate subjects of race and identity that have become increasingly hot-button issues in Silicon Valley and beyond.”
No way. I’m shocked. Maybe it’s difficult because you cannot satisfy everything, and not everything concerns race.
Calm your horses, Karen. The world doesn’t revolve around you.
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Comments
Trying to think of famous Karens. Liz Warren certainly qualifies, but I’m thinking Cori Bush has a shot at a title.
Jill Claybrook
Tipper Gore
Yeah, but I was specifically wondering whether there were non-white women who were clear contenders for Karenhood.
“I think when people are called Karens it’s implied that this is someone that has little empathy to others or is bothered by minorities others that don’t look like them. Like why can’t bad behavior not be called out?” she wrote.
So, the ‘calling out’ is therefore open to everyone, yes?
No, of course not.
Because calling people Karens is never bad behavior in itself, right?
Uber lunatics (“uber” as in “super”). Another company to boycott.
Many reasons to boycott Uber long before this. Including their company culture, variously called out as sexualized, misogynist, and similar.
““I felt like I was being scolded for the entirety of that meeting,” one employee wrote.”
Welcome to the world of white people forced to sit through these struggle sessions. If you want true equity then you get some of the suck like the rest of us.
If they can demand self-actualization, then so can I. And in my world all y’all are called “Karen”. That’s how this works, right?
I’ve only heard “Karen” used to describe strident busybodies and race was never a factor.
I call “nonsense” on this. It’s the Exalted Minority once again making trouble out of whole cloth.
I also know more than one male who I would describe as Karens.
Strident busybodies are available in both sexes.
It’s like that particular character defect is available to all.
Equality at last!
Around here, we call them Kevin.
Keith Olbermann, right off the bat.
Seems like being sat in a room to listen to the racial angst of people you’ve never met is universally disliked.
Have we found an actual human universal?
Woo-hoo!
Geepers, who could have seen that coming?
If a ‘Karen,’ ‘Becky,’ or any rando white woman if they’re not the same thing, does not have civil rights, that can be quickly stated in a memo.
Because white women live a pristine and carefree life without any care in the world
You are living life on Easy Mode.
This is the company that has paid huge settlements all over the country for its drivers sexually assaulting women.
And had to change their management, and institute various internal correctives for their similarly abusine internal company culture.
Samantha Josephson unavailable for comment.
ALL DEI Chiefs should be put on leave, permanently.
Quite frankly, I have had it with busybody Karens who stick their nose in everything.
But I am also just as fed up with Quantifa, and Shaquita walking into a fast food restaurant and destroying the place when they didn’t get an adequate supply of French fries with their “Bitch, I ain’t too happy” meal.
At least Karens don’t tear a place apart, they just become annoying. Usually preceded by “Can I speak to your manager!”