A white woman launched into a homophobic and racist tirade against two LGBT+ teens who painted a Pride Month celebration on a local bridge in Tennessee. (Instagram/@crazykarens)
The dictionary-definition of a Karen launched into a racist and homophobic tirade while painting over the kaleidoscopic Pride Month artwork of two LGBT+ teens.
Jasmine Martinez and Carmen McClain painted a bridge, which is known for community art in Alcoa, Tennessee, on Tuesday (8 June) in honour of Pride Month.
The two teens had originally painted the rainbow, pansexual, transgender and bisexual flags on the bridge, according to local news outlet WBIR-TV.
Martinez told The Daily Times that they were still painting the bridge when an unidentified woman drove by and told them to “stop” and that they “were doing terrible things to the bridge”. The woman then returned on foot and launched into a homophobic and racist tirade.
In a video recorded by Martinez, the woman told the teens, who are girlfriends, that she was going to “paint over your s**t” because they’re “not even different anymore”.
“I could give a s**t less what you are and what you think you might want to be and not be, but you’re not going to go express it all over everything,” the woman said. “I’m sick of hearing all of you.”
She then told the two teens that they’re “sick” and claimed they “don’t pay taxes” because they’re “probably immigrants here”. The “grown” woman then used white spray paint to cover the teen’s artwork. She also claimed that she had “more right” to paint over the artwork because she “works”, “pays taxes” and is “born American”.
According to The Daily Times, Martinez said her family is Hispanic, and McClain said she is Italian and Indigenous American.
At one point, the woman said she wanted to paint the American flag on the mural because “that’s what we stand for”. When Martinez pointed out that she had the wrong colours to paint the US flag, the woman said the teen was being “disrespectful”.
An almost three-minute-long video documenting the homophobic and racist encounter was later uploaded to the Instagram account “crazykarens” and has been viewed more than 42,500 times on the platform.
Martinez told WBIR-TV that she had “never heard anyone” say such vile things to her “in my entire life”. She explained they wanted to create artwork to show other LGBT+ youth in the area that they are not alone.
“We wanted people to know they’re not alone,” Martinez said. “When I was in middle school, I would have loved to see these flags and see all these people supporting us.”
The Daily Times reported that Martinez and McCain returned the next day to repaint the bridge with a group of supporters. But by Wednesday evening (9 June), witnesses told the newspaper that people had again defaced the work.
