I’m going to stop using the term Karen as a pejorative. It simply is not fair to the many wonderful Karens. Some additions to our popular lexicon simply do not belong and instead of fueling the cliche, today I want to dedicate an entire post to a lovely flight attendant named Karen.
With Flight Attendants Like Karen, It’s Time To Stop Using Karen As A Bad Word
I mentioned Karen Braum in my recent United flight review to Brazil. To refresh your memory:
She was simply the best–so attentive, so friendly, and such a joy to be around.
Reports of bad service in the air always leave me curious as I routinely experience flight attendants who love their job and take great pride in showing excellent customer service. I saw it on the way to Chicago with the pair of flight attendants who helped a disabled old man into the lavatory and I saw such a joy in Karen, a contagious joy that could not help but to make me smile.
United used to offer wine flights in Polaris Business class. Using beautiful glasses and a special three-glass holder, passengers could sample the different wines on the menu in order to choose a glass that best suited them.
It was a popular part of the Polaris soft product, but was cut in 2018 after United said it encouraged people to drink too much alcohol (not because people got drunk and misbehaved, but because the wine budget was not just broken, but exponentially broken).
Well, when I asked Karen which white wine would pare best with my fish, she brought out all three bottles, three plastic cups (oh, United…), and created a wine flight for me. After the meal service she offered to wash my (real glass) cup out that I bring from home when I fly.
Before bed, she proactively offered slippers and a mattress pad along with an extra water bottle. In the least intrusive way possible, she would appear every few minutes and had an uncanny ability to anticipate a request, like when I was looking around for my phone charger and she asked if she could get me down something from the overhead bin.
I fell asleep, slept well, woke up, looked at the screen, and saw landing was in 34 minutes.
Great, I slept through breakfast…
Oh no, not on Karen’s watch.
She magically appeared moments after I stirred, wished me a good morning and a cup of coffee, then offered breakfast.
Standard protocol calls for breakfast service beginning 90 minutes prior to arrival. While 34 minutes is pushing it, Karen brought out my breakfast tray and presented it to me with a smile. That was so appreciated.
Karen was a 10/10 (unlike my crew today, but that’s another story…). Her warm and caring service is one of United’s greatest assets.
As I reflect upon Karen Braum and all the wonderful friends and colleagues named Karen, I realize that I need to stop using that term pejoratively, even in jest, to refer to a woman, usually white, seeming to be entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is normal, and often bigoted.
CONCLUSION
I did not have the “Karen” conversation with Karen, but it’s not an unreasonable assumption to think that even with a thick skin having your given name associated with a whiny racist is just not fair.
So thank you Karen Braum. Being a “Karen” like you a high compliment.
Thank You!!!! My name is not “Karen,” but I have always felt that this is a very derogatory term that is demeaning to all women. It discourages women and girls from having confidence and speaking out, when necessary. I have caught my kids using it and told them that I never want to hear them use that ugly, prejudicial term again. Thanks for taking a stand.
The white fragility is strong here.
I sense some beta male fragility with you
Nah, not really.
I find the tern ‘Karen ‘to be racist. It only refers to a woman of a certain race.
It isn’t racist since it refers to certain women of a race, not all. But that’s a popular counterargument by racists, so…
Karen Braum is the best! And her FA hubby Jim isn’t too shabby either . I feel sorry for all the nice Karens out there!!!!!
You must just be lucky. It’s very rare that I feel as if I’m anything other than a burden to flight attendants. Seriously, I’m not just speaking in hyperbole. I’m always as polite as can be and never demanding.
I couldn’t imagine an FA on a US carrier taking the time to help me make a wine selection or proactively offer me anything unless it was dictated by required service protocols. I actually often wonder if I should just start being rude in order to get what I want, but I think doing so would just make me feel bad in the end.
It’s interesting, because I’ve had fairly good UA crews this year (a few bad apples on the LAX-JFK flights, but not horrible, just indifferent) and very good AA crews (much more limited). I don’t get what the problem is, because when I hear your experience, it simply has not been mine.
I’ve flown exclusively AA long haul and a mix of UA/AA domestic. Maybe it’s the crew bases I fly with. If you ever get around to making LALF branded wine glasses or coffee cups perhaps the crew will notice and start being nice to me.
Just like we should not tell Matt jokes.
(Ok, if the readers don’t know what a Matt joke is, I will repeat just one Matt joke…..What is a man with no arms and no legs in front of a door? Matt)
That’s with the old quadriplegic jokes playing on names with words, like Bob, Patty, Curt and Rod. Karen doesn’t play on any objects or verbs so that name is not in those jokes.
Thanks for this! My wife is named Karen – and she is a wonderful person. She is also a sensitive person, and the use of the name “Karen” as an insult has really been hard on her since it started.
Can’t y’all try to be less white?
Can you try to be less racist?
Whoppi Goldberg’s real name is Karen Johnson. Time for the beyoutch progressive communists in the BLM movement to STFU,
Those darn progressives and their fight for equality for all!
Karen Braum is great. Her FA hubby Jim isn’t too shabby either. I always feel sorry for all the great Karens out there. Way to go Karen!!!! Xoxo, Joeyyyy Fitz ❤️
Thank you and as probably very few Americans know there is a Karen nation as well which lives in Northern Thailand/Myanmar.
As someone who has had to deal with the fallout of having a name with additional meanings his whole life, I disagree. I think that your heart is in the right place but you’re trying too hard for what’s likely to be a passing phase of the common vernacular. I do give you props for trying to be sensitive although I disagree.
LOL