Gabriela Baron, mother of a student at Spence School in New York City, pulled her daughter out of the private girls school after a teacher showed a clip from the premiere of comedian Ziwe Fumudoh’s Showtime series. According to Newsweek, the mother wrote a three-page letter to the school board to express her concerns about the Ziwe pilot episode, which includes a part where Fumudoh speaks to women named Karen and asks them how it feels to be associated with “obnoxious, angry and entitled, often racist, white women.’’

Baron described the video as a “gratuitous display of racist hate speech directed at white women.” The head of the school then sent an apology letter to parents.

“As you may know, yesterday a parent, who is also an alumna and a former trustee, sent a letter to the Board of Trustees to voice her strong objection to a video shown to 15 students in her daughter’s Grade 8 history class on the last day of school,” Bodie Brizendine wrote. “We take this seriously; it is never acceptable to ridicule anyone at any time."

The school director added that "sharing a satirical video that made fun of white women was a significant mistake."

"We are sorry for any harm this has caused to anyone in our community,” Brizendine wrote.

In her letter to the school, Baron described herself as a Cuban-American who attended Spence from 8th- 12 grade and graduated with the Class of 1989. The mother adds that she has served the school in many capacities through the years. But she also claims to be concerned about the trends at the school in recent years, particularly noting "a de-emphasis of academic rigor and a single-minded focus on race, diversity and inclusion that is now driving the school and everything that goes on within its walls."

"Yesterday was our daughter's last day at Spence and her graduation from Middle School," Baron wrote. "This evening, we learned that yesterday, during our daughter's last history class, the class was shown a video by 'Ziwe' which exemplifies hate speech against white women. My husband and I watched the video in its entirety and were shocked. The video openly derides, humiliates and ridicules white women."

As Blavity previously reported, one of the women who sat down with Fumudoh said the Karen memes were funny at first.

"My kids sent it to me right away they were like 'Oh my gosh mom look at this.' And it became not funny very quickly," she said.

Many more white women continue to express their anger over being deemed a "Karen," saying it's a "slur" and it's "offensive."

Gabriela Baron

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