Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot
called White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany "Karen" in a tweet on Thursday, HuffPost reported.
Lightfoot shared a screenshot of a tweet from Time reporter Brian Bennett saying "White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany just called Lori Lightfoot 'the derelict major of Chicago' and said she should request federal help to secure the city."
The Chicago mayor captioned the photo "Hey, Karen. Watch your mouth."
Hey, Karen. Watch your mouth. pic.twitter.com/zhjRyokKD5
— Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) July 16, 2020
McEnany made the comment during a press briefing, criticizing Lightfoot for not seeking federal assistance to battle gun violence in the city. The press secretary said the mayor was “doing a very poor job at protecting her streets,” NBC Chicago reported.
The city has reported 385 killings in 2020 as of July, compared to 260 during the same time frame in 2019, according to Chicago Police Department statistics. The document also shows a total of 1,541 shooting incidents in 2020 so far, with 1,059 being reported during the same time last year.
Of the previous four years reported, 2020 is leading in the number of slayings in the city.
Lightfoot's comments follow the recent popularization of the name Karen to describe white women who have been filmed on multiple occasions wrongly accusing Black people of crime and filing false police reports in an attempt to weaponize their white privilege, as Blavity previously reported.
Urban Dictionary defined Karen as “the stereotypical name associated with rude, obnoxious and insufferable middle-aged white women.”
In light of the recent use of the name, a source confirmed to the Chicago Sun-Times that Lightfoot intentionally used Karen in that context.
People quickly caught on to Lightfoot's comment and shared their thoughts on Twitter.
— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) July 17, 2020
Well the Mayor pic.twitter.com/60Jx8RvoHR
— Team♈️NoChillofWakanda (@MsRita73) July 16, 2020
Mayor, they can ALL kick goddamn rock. You've been Mayor for 1yr and 3mths. This problem waaaaay proceeded you. They attack you because you're Black female and lesbian. Period! Did they attack Rahm and Dailey the same way? And this gun violence started on Dailey's watch!
— Friendly Introvert (@Gladgirl720) July 16, 2020
Keep up the good work Mayor Lightfoot! This is a big city, with big city problems. It takes a strong WOMAN to do the job! ???????? Thank you!
— Asha Esterline (@asha_esterline) July 16, 2020
— Sassy_Tiff ⚖️ (@tify330) July 16, 2020
McEnany's comments follow President Donald Trump's claim that the city of Chicago is “worse than Afghanistan,” NBC Chicago reported.
Trump has been doubling down against Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, saying he is soft on crime and anti-police and that America won't be safe under his administration.
Trump said he plans to make an announcement in the coming days about helping cities that are struggling to combat crime.
“We’ll have another announcement next week with the attorney general, the FBI and others concerning our cities because the left-wing group of people that are running our cities are not doing the job that they’re supposed to be doing," the president said on Wednesday.
“And it’s not a very tough job to do if they knew what they were doing. So we’ll be talking about that next week and probably have an announcement as to what we’re planning to do to help them. They’re supposed to be asking for help, and they don’t want to ask,” Trump said, alluding to Lightfoot and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
The Sun-Times reports Trump sent a message to both Lightfoot and Pritzker in June asking for them to reach out about federal assistance, but the letter was filled with insults.
