The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is taking action against the "Karens" of the city who seek to weaponize 911 calls against people of color.
The Caution Against Racial and Exploitative Non-Emergencies Act, or "CAREN Act" is named after the internet's shorthand for white women who use their privilege to attack others, especially people of color, by calling the police for no reason.
This situation has appeared repeatedly on social media over the past several years, with Karens like "Permit Patty" and "BBQ Becky" lashing out at people of color who were simply going about their lives.
The CAREN Act gives the victims of such calls the right to sue in civil court those who contact 911 with "the specific intent to discriminate."
The Act was introduced by Supervisor Shamann Walton, the Board's only Black member, who thanked his colleagues for their unanimous support, saying:
"Black and Indigenous people of color have the right to go about daily activities without being threatened by someone calling 911 on them due to racial bias."
"We don't want what happened to Emmett Till in 1955 ― or the long history of false accusations of Black men and boys in this country, due to weaponizing law enforcement to threaten, terrorize and sometimes even kill them ― to ever happen again."
The new ordinance aims to protect those who are discriminated against on the basis of their "race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, national origin, place of birth, sex, age, religion, creed, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, weight, or height."
Hopefully other communities will look to San Francisco when shaping their own anti-discrimination laws. Already, California Assemblyman Rob Bonta has proposed a bill which would "prevent the weaponization of our law enforcement against communities of color" by classify such erroneous 911 calls as a hate crime.
It's time to end discrimination in the United States.
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