Social media star Karen Civil called a hypocrite for advertising t-shirt with Derek Chauvin's face on it
A social media star has been slammed for trying to capitalize on George Floyd's death after she advertised a shirt with the face of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Karen Civil, who has close to 500,000 followers on Twitter and describes herself as a "philanthropist, entrepreneur", took to the platform to upload a picture of herself wearing a white t-shirt with Chauvin's place printed in the middle. Below the officer's mugshot, it was printed, "He Did That S***. Guilty As F***".
In a follow-up tweet, she shared the link for a website where followers could buy the t-shirt for $30 on a page that was titled, 'Stop Killing Us'. She promised that the site was "owned & operated by Black Male Entrepreneurs" and that all proceeds would go towards protester bailouts.
However, users were less than impressed with Civil and accused her of being tone-deaf during a time when it was Floyd's name that deserved to be in the headlines, not the police officer's.
"Karen Civil girl WHY would you promote a shirt with that killers face on it???" one user tweeted. "I don’t care if Black designers made it. They shouldn’t have! See this is the exception when people SHOULD be criticized and talked about! Not the ones who are genuinely trying to help. This...NO!"
"Karen Civil really wearing a shirt with a murderer’s face on it..." another wrote. "Who does that? Who?"
It also didn't help that she was also wearing a face mask by Off-White, a company whose boycott has been called for by the African-American community after its designer and founder Virgil Abloh criticized protesters for looting two luxury shops in Los Angeles.
"Karen Civil wearing a t-shirt with George Floyd’s killer’s face on it, an Off-White face mask after Virgil donated $50 to the cause AND those ugly Yeezy slides and she wants to talk about tone deaf lol," one user tweeted.
"Karen Civil. I really like you, I do, but you wearing that t-shirt whilst wearing an OFF-WHITE mask after yesterday’s shit show is kinda deaf, ain’t it?" another posted.
They also called her out for hypocrisy since she had promised to boycott Abloh's products in multiple tweets, including one where she accused him of turning a "blind eye when we are brutally being murdered by police" and stating "your blackness does not have an on and off switch."
But Civil, who first gained attention by helping create a website for rapper Lil Wayne to communicate with his fans while he was serving time in prison, doubled down following the criticism.
"Woke up to see people who don’t follow me or know the plight that I’ve been on using my platform to discuss injustices using my picture to convey a negative message," she wrote. "1. I took my picture before Virgil made certain comments. I can’t express myself by wearing his mug shot."
"I’m not making a single dime from this as you can see from the tweet that followed it...2 young black entrepreneurs created that shirt/store, I was just giving them an opportunity to bring awareness to their shop during this covid time. Proceeds goes towards the bail out funds."