‘Why Don’t You Be White?’ Karen Video Shows White Woman Harass Isaac Hayes’ Son Outside His Home
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It seems like every year there is a multitude of Karen encounters that go viral, upending the lives of racist, authoritative and exhaustingly nosy white women who refuse to stop minding Black people’s business whenever they decide we don’t belong somewhere.
It’s almost as if these passive-aggressive white supremacists refuse to receive the memo that, in the age of camera phones, they run the risk of their pro-Jim Crow tendencies being exposed, resulting in their very public shaming and possibly a loss of employment or worse.
Anyway, recently, Isaac Hayes III, the son of legendary soul singer, songwriter and composer Isaac Hayes, had his own encounter with an unhinged (and apparently drunk) KK-Karen who confronted him with a simple request:
“Why don’t you be white?”
Hayes III, a tech entrepreneur and the manager of his father’s estate, posted the clip of him being harassed by the Karen in the wilds, whose delusional sense of authority he refused to entertain, as he drove up to his gated community home in metro Atlanta.
“You trying to get in? Who are you? I’m on the board,” the unidentified Karen said, likely lying about being “on the board” of an HOA (unless it’s an acronym for “Hueless Opressor Association”).
“I don’t care,” Hayes III appropriately responded, after telling her “I live here” and “I don’t need to tell you who I am.”
“You driving here like a bat out of hell, you drive in and drive out…f**k you, it’s all ridiculous, we have dogs, we have people and you don’t even care,” she continued.
Even before the white woman made her explicitly racist remark, it was clear she wasn’t afraid Hayes III was some intruder trying to sneak through the gate unauthorized because she could be seen trying to block him from using the security keypad, which a legal resident or guest of a legal resident would need to use in order to get in. So, it clearly wasn’t about how he was driving — it was about his Blackness, and she made that clear before the altercation was done and he went on about his business.
“Why don’t you be white?” Karen asked as she finally walked away.
“Christmas Eve Karen: I’ve never seen a Karen in the wild. Well tonight I had my first up close encounter with one,” Hayes III wrote on Instagram, recounting the event. “I stayed calm, I made no sudden movements and got away as quickly as I could. Outside of preventing me from entering my community, cursing at me and telling me I should be ‘White.’ It’s pretty surreal. White Supremacy is crashin’ out all 2025. Be safe.”
Earlier this year, Hayes III joined numerous artists in expressing disapproval of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign using his late father’s song “Hold On, I’m Coming” during a campaign event, and, in September, a federal judge in Atlanta ruled that Trump and his campaign had to stop using the track.
“I want this to serve as an opportunity for other artists to come forward that don’t want their music used by Donald Trump or other political entities and continue to fight for music artists’ rights and copyright,” he told CBS News at the time.
Yep — Trump is about to be back in office, and Black people shouldn’t be surprised if these Karen encounters go into overdrive as a result.
It’s about to be a long four years, y’all. Buckle up!
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