Attacking ‘Karens’ is just racism by another name . . .

Until last week, if you had asked the BBC to nominate the most reviled species on the planet, the answer would have been obvious: middleaged white men, of course, the necrotic heart of the evil patriarchy (so long, Andrew neil et al).

But not any more, it seems. For Auntie has a new enemy in her sights: Karen.

A Karen, in case you didn’t know, is a term used on social media to denote a middle-aged woman who is unaware of her ‘white privilege’. Someone who has forgotten, almost certainly maliciously, to recognise that her very existence is an affront to all forward-thinking people. We learned this in a trailer this week for a BBC podcast called no Country For Young Women.

Responding to the question ‘How can white women not be Karens?’ journalist Amelia Dimoldenberg and historian Charlotte Riley explained that any woman who is ‘unwilling to accept that her whiteness is a privilege’ is a Karen. And, as such, she needs to ‘educate herself’ and should ‘read some books so that you are aware of the histories of white people and race’.

But, if she doesn’t do this — probably because she is too busy hanging out her wokelets’ washing or making their vegan dinner — the message in the podcast is this: ‘Get out of the way, basically.’

in other words, any woman of my generation who fails to publicly condemn herself as a worthless worm on whose shoulders rest all the sufferings of every person of colour is, to use the modern terminology, cancelled. Which, even by the BBC’s current standards, is quite a notion.

Don’t misunderstand me. i am — and always have been — very aware of how racism blights the lives of people of colour. i’ve seen it happen over the years to people i love, and it is soul-destroying.

it’s not just men like David Starkey, making grand racist statements; it exists on a much more organic — and in some ways more pernicious — level, too. it’s this kind of everyday racism that chips away at people, that damages their sense of worth and causes anger and resentment.

i also completely understand what people mean when they talk about ‘unconscious bias’. i’ll give you an example. A few years ago i was talking to a friend of mine, who is black, at a party, when a fellow guest turned to us. ‘Could you fetch me another glass of wine?’ she said to my friend.

it took a split-second to realise that she thought that he was a waiter because of his skin colour.

i was mortified: this is one of the most accomplished, talented and, incidentally, kindest men i know. And he was being treated like a servant.

it is that kind of unthinking bias non-whites have to put up with every day of their lives. And when it happens, they and those around them have a right to call it out.

But it is also why the Karen meme is so wrong. Because it is the other side of the same coin. it judges people — specifically women — on their colour, sex, age and social background.

And what is that if not another form of bigotry? One the BBC, it seems, has embraced.

For an organisation that supposedly prides itself on its impartiality to use taxpayers’ money to broadcast such malicious drivel unchallenged is not only dangerous, it is also hugely divisive. it is as bad a racial slur as any other.

History shows that it’s when people feel marginalised that they commit the most wicked crimes.

there are lunatics on both sides of this culture war. that the BBC chooses to indulge them is a sad indictment on an organisation that was, until very recently, the envy of the world.