"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Monday, July 13, 2020

Karen of the Week

This one is almost beyond belief. From TMZ:

A radio host in New Hampshire went on a vile, racist tirade against a group of workers doing their job, because they dared to speak Spanish.

It's almost unbelievable ... Dianna Ploss saw the workers who were doing landscaping in downtown Nashua, and she just went nuts, screaming, "It's America. Speak English!"

Her ignorance is breathtaking ... she assumes they're working for the State of New Hampshire, as if that would justify her comments. For the record, there's no law in New Hampshire that we found prohibiting people from speaking languages other than English.

They correct her, saying they are a private company, but she's not deterred, hurling insults and making ridiculous demands.

An African-American man who happened to witness her tirade comes by and confronts her, and she barks back, "Because he's a black man. He's gonna protect the brown man from this white woman." Afterward, she posted on her Facebook page, "I'm not backing down."

There you have it -- all the arrogance and self-importance of right-wing so-called "Americans". I suppose it never occurred to her that it's none of her business what language people are speaking among themselves. And don't ignore the overt racism.

She wouldn't last two minutes in my neighborhood, where there's a taqueria on every corner, a corner store that advertises "Productos Latinos", even an apothecary that offers "Los remedios de la abuela". Oh, and there's an Eritrian restaurant a couple blocks down the street. And at the intersection where I change buses, you can hear Spanish, Russian, at least one Indian language, a couple of African languages, Arabic, Vietnamese, and who knows what else.

And somehow, we all get along fine. But then, we're a bunch of liberals here.

(My Lithuanian grandmother never did get a good handle on English; family get-togethers were always in Lithuanian; my generation never knew what the adults were saying, because none of us speak Lithuanian. Wonder how this Karen would have reacted to that.)

Oh, and according to an update at TMZ, she's been fired from her radio gig.

There's video at the link, which I can't embed. It's pretty appalling.

Via Joe.My.God., who has more background and a larger-format video.



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