July 20. 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The term \u201cKaren\u201d is a very pop\u00adu\u00adlar name for peo\u00adple who aren\u2019t exact\u00adly the kind\u00adest toward minori\u00adties. It also just so hap\u00adpens to describe mid\u00addle-aged white women with blonde hair. Although I have strayed away from using this term as often as oth\u00aders, I often find myself con\u00adfused about one thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A big part of this sum\u00admer for me has been lis\u00adten\u00ading to the Bea\u00adt\u00adles. George Har\u00adri\u00adson, Ringo Starr, Paul McCart\u00adney and John Lennon have always been leg\u00adends. But their mes\u00adsages about peace and love real\u00adly hit home for me. I was born in 2003, yet these words in their music have affect\u00aded me and shaped me to be the man I am today. How come these old white ladies, who were teenagers at the height of Beat\u00adle\u00adma\u00adnia, seemed to miss these mes\u00adsages?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Bea\u00adt\u00adles are the great\u00adest band of all time. Usu\u00adal\u00adly, stuff like that would be up for opin\u00adion, but this seems to be a pret\u00adty known fact. Although in their ear\u00adly days they were just some pret\u00adty boys with cool hair\u00addos, they real\u00adly became intel\u00adli\u00adgent and mature musi\u00adcians. From \u201cAll You Need Is Love\u201d to \u201cHey Jude,\u201d all their songs preached peace, love and accep\u00adtance through\u00adout the whole world. McCart\u00adney even wrote a song titled \u201cBlack\u00adbird\u201d for Black peo\u00adple strug\u00adgling dur\u00ading the civ\u00adil rights move\u00adment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So now the ques\u00adtion is, how did these mes\u00adsages slip right over these people\u2019s heads? Dur\u00ading the \u201960s and \u201970s, the major\u00adi\u00adty of white peo\u00adple were able to afford Bea\u00adt\u00adles songs\u2014albums were a big mar\u00adket at the time. So it makes sense that not many minori\u00adties res\u00adonate with the Bea\u00adt\u00adles. How is it that the peo\u00adple who could afford their music didn\u2019t learn any\u00adthing? That\u2019s like going to school and get\u00adting a doc\u00adtor\u00adate in math and not being able to do 1+1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s crazy how the same peo\u00adple who hate the protests we are set\u00adting up right now did the same thing dur\u00ading the \u201970s when they protest\u00aded the Viet\u00adnam War. Their par\u00adents, just like most of our par\u00adents, didn\u2019t love the idea of protest\u00ading against some\u00adthing in our coun\u00adtry. What changed? Because now we\u2019re fight\u00ading for peo\u00adple of dif\u00adfer\u00adent skin col\u00adors, the fight isn\u2019t worth it any\u00admore?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peo\u00adple are peo\u00adple. Just because their skin col\u00ador is dif\u00adfer\u00adent doesn\u2019t change the fact that they are human beings. These Karens were being blind\u00aded by racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dur\u00ading the \u201970s, there was a huge hip\u00adpie move\u00adment. A lot of the peo\u00adple who come to our protests act\u00ading dis\u00adre\u00adspect\u00adful\u00adly were alive dur\u00ading that time. It was a huge part of their youth, and unless they actu\u00adal\u00adly lis\u00adtened to their par\u00adents, they were hap\u00adpi\u00adly involved. Again, what\u2019s the dif\u00adfer\u00adence? Anoth\u00ader youth group is protest\u00ading what they feel is wrong with our coun\u00adtry, and now they\u2019re say\u00ading we sound stu\u00adpid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hypocrisy on top of hypocrisy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s noth\u00ading we can do that can\u2019t be done. There\u2019s no one we can save that can\u2019t be saved. There\u2019s noth\u00ading we can\u2019t be because we can learn how to be us in time. It\u2019s easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All we need is love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
July 20. 2020 The term \u201cKaren\u201d is a very pop\u00adu\u00adlar name for peo\u00adple who aren\u2019t exact\u00adly the kind\u00adest toward minori\u00adties. It also just so hap\u00adpens to describe mid\u00ad\u00addle-aged white women with blonde hair. Although I have strayed away from using this term as often as oth\u00aders, I often find myself con\u00adfused about one thing. A [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":993,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-speeches"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/993"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}