A Generation of Anti-Karen Protesters, Energized by Pop Smoke
By Joe McBride and Lucas Cooperman
We woke up Tuesday and checked the weather on our phones, seeing rain in the forecast for Montclair, NJ. In our group chat, we planned for an uncomplicated summer day of Call of Duty: Warzone, an escape from one chaotic world into another, which we had grown used to since being sent home from our freshman year of college. Our plans suddenly changed at noon when a Facebook video was sent to our group chat, captioned, ”It has happened again.” Just by the thumbnail image of an angry white woman and the caption of the video, we all knew what that “It” was. It was another display of white entitlement. Another threat against Black lives. Another Karen video. It was the deep and painful divide between our two Americas, one Black, and one white. So deep that it has been unable to heal, even after hundreds of years.
We watched in astonishment to see that this time, “It” was happening in our own town. A town that sells itself on diversity and acceptance, a town that prides itself, rightly, wrongly, blindly, on being more progressive than neighboring North Jersey towns, yet a town where a Black person is 490% more likely to have police force used on them than a white person. In the video, a white woman named Susan Schulz harasses a Black couple, Fareed and Norrinda Hayat, over whether they had a permit to build a patio in their backyard, which borders her backyard. As the couple repeatedly asks Susan to leave and other neighbors urge her to stop, she falsely claims that Fareed assaulted her, and calls the police and demands officers to come to the scene. We were enraged and felt that simply sharing the video on social media was not a strong enough response.
We knew that we had to demonstrate our outrage, the same way our grandparents did in the 1960s when they took to the streets to demonstrate for Civil Rights and protest the Vietnam War.
We started planning quickly. Through a Google search, we found out where this Karen lived, and we began organizing a peaceful protest. We decided to march up to the top of the street where she lived and then back down for her and her whole neighborhood to hear. We wanted this Karen to know that we despised her actions, by using our own bodies and voices. We spread the word through a popular hometown meme page on Instagram, making sure to encourage mask-wearing and non-violence. We told everyone to meet up in Sunset Park, a small park at the bottom of Karen’s street. We got there early, wondering if people would show up. We had only spread our message a few hours earlier.
Slowly but surely, young people started trickling into the park. It was amazing to see the gathering we had created in such little time, purely based on social media word of mouth. More and more people came, many with signs proclaiming “White Entitlement Is Violence” and “Power In Unity.” After a few minutes, dozens of people had gathered with us, and our fears of a no-show passed. Our community heard us and joined us.
Then, we set off up the street, chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, That Racist Stuff Has Got To Go.” Having our peers follow us up the street was an extremely gratifying feeling. As we got closer to her house, our chanting got louder and louder, our combined outrage growing. Our unity powered us.
Neighbors came out of their houses and cheered us on, some even joining us. We got to the top of the street, where Karen met us with her iPhone camera pointed our way. We stopped for less than a minute outside of her house, but she felt our message: none of us will tolerate you. Then, we turned around and chanted back down her street, ending at the bottom of the road in cheers. Our protest was a peaceful success, despite this Karen calling the police (again) and falsely claiming we threw a brick at her yard. We left knowing we had accomplished something unique yet necessary.
Footage of Karen harassing the Black family, and of our protest, soon went viral on social media and was picked up by numerous news outlets. The Huffington Post interviewed us. Even TMZ picked up the story. It was an overwhelming response. Hundreds of thousands of people viewed what happened online, most of them denouncing Karen’s actions and commending us for protesting outside her home. We were proud our efforts were seen around the world, just like our grandparent’s generation had decades before us.
When we marched up the street in protest, we felt like what that generation must have felt when they fought for equality and peace. A continuation of outrage over generations of Americans. We grew up listening to their protest songs, oldies now, not knowing that the music we like would become our own songs of protest.
That generation had its anthems and cultural icons like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Marvin Gaye, and CSNY to guide them through their movements, and ours does too. In the same way that their parents didn’t understand the music the youth were embracing, our generation has its own distinct songs and icons which may not be comprehensible by our elders. The late Brooklyn rapper Pop Smoke, who was just 20 years old when he was murdered this past February, was an artist who in death has become an anthem of protest for our generation. We hear the power in his booming bass, reminiscent of a military drum beat. His confrontational, aggressive lyrics exemplify and empower the “no chill” energy that our generation acts on, and energize us to action, a call to (peaceful) arms.
When we listen to Pop Smoke, we hear the energy our generation possesses, fed up with centuries of oppression, amplified by the enormity of social media. We call people out. We stand on our beliefs. We make sure our voices are heard. We never fold. Our voices are loud, like our grandparent’s generation before us, and Pop Smoke embodies that aspect of us.
His music is among the songs that are becoming the anthems of the Black Lives Matter movement. We stream these songs at protests, channeling their energy into our determination to fight for what we believe in. We have our own distinct sound, one that our parents and grandparents might not understand, but one that will undoubtedly go down in history all the same.
And what is clear to us is that “It” is not going to stand any longer. The system of oppression and abundant racist attitudes and actions that have plagued our country for centuries needs to go — it no longer has a place in our America.
So like it or not, this is the sound of the future, and it is ours.
Stream Pop Smoke’s posthumous debut album, Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon, and continue battling against white supremacy and systemic racism in the largest movement in our country’s history.
