Exit and Karens
I want to write about my experience of shooting local girl group EXIT. This shoot was quite a rollercoaster of emotions from thrifting, to confrontations with karens. The girl group consists of 4 sweet girls from all around Florida. They're base is Orlando where they do most of their creation. Exit is a diverse girl group ranging from ages of 18 to 22. Rhayne, Kelsy, Haleigh, and Lisa-marie are some of the sweetest girls I've ever had the chance of working with. They are cute, sweet and creative souls. while we were shooting however we had a run in with an infamous karen. We were shooting in the yard of an apartment building where we had friendly interactions with staff. After some time, an elder white woman came out of her apartment to ask if we lived there. That question in itself shows such an entitlement that many white people seem to have from living with privilege. I would never go out of my way to ask someone who lives in my community because that in itself says I assume that they do not and that I am entitled to control who enters certain spaces. That was not the worst of it; however, at some point she shooed the girls out, when a member of the group asked her if she thought she could shoo us like dogs the women responded that she could because she lived there. Of course once I started recording the encounter with my phone she had no memory of saying that. While we were heading out to avoid further confrontation another white woman pointed me out to say that I didn't live there. The thing is no one knows all the residents of they're community. What she was really saying is not that I didn't live there, but that I did not belong there.