To hope this racist woman loses her job - thread 2

[zscaler]

But Vlad says she doesn't want allies, so what's the point?

The point is, you do it because it’s the right thing to do, not because you might gain something (trust / respect / gratitude / praise) from it.

You do it because all white people have a moral responsibility to dismantle racism, and that shouldn’t be dependent on black people asking us to do it, or being polite, or being grateful for our allyship.

Because it’s the very bare minimum we could and should do.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/08/how-white-women-use-strategic-tears-to-avoid-accountability

To those objecting to the use of the term "Karen" when a man could have lost his life in a "legally sanctioned hit" by the police

If you are bothered more by how people react to injustice, than the injustice itself, you are invested in oppression.

That is all.

@Stripesgalore

People act in ways that they wouldn’t want the world to see all the time. This isn’t 1984.

Unless you’re breaking the law, at work, or presenting yourself as connected to your employer, it should have nothing to do with your job.

If she is found to have made a false report of a threat and broken the law, it could have

Otherwise people on the internet trying to get someone sacked is just the modern version of social shaming and wanting to act outside of the law. It’s not a good principle for employers to be able to sack people for non criminal activity outside of work.

So should this man get to keep his job?
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/louisiana-cop-fired-saying-unfortunate-more-black-people-didn-t-n1215451

"A Louisiana police officer was fired over a Facebook comment that said it was "unfortunate" more black people did not die of the coronavirus."

Of course she was a racist twat and weaponising her white femininity but there will be people who wonder why he started filming her when she was quiet and in the process of leashing her dog.

Also, instead of saying ‘Look if you’re going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it’, just say ‘I’m going to lead your dog out of the Ramble with dog treats if you don’t leash him’.

We all know she was a twat but trying to understand timelines and actions is natural.

If you are bothered more by how people react to injustice, than the injustice itself, you are invested in oppression.

I'm sorry but that's just a reductive soundbite of a statement.

It's perfectly feasible to be equally bothered by both or to more bothered by the injustice whilst not condoning the reaction.

By way of example Mr Cooper has denounced the threats against Amy made in reaction to the video - does that make him invested in oppression?

OFFS, the why he started filming her is BECAUSE HE IS A BLACK MAN AND BLACK MEN GET SHOT FOR LITERALLY DOING NOTHING WRONG DURING ENCOUNTERS WITH WHITE PEOPLE. There's not a black man in America who won't have his cell phone at the ready just in case he needs evidence. She came into his space, not the other way round. She should not have been there with her unleashed dog. He was the one put into a vulnerable position, not her. He had the choice to let her do what she wanted, which was to let her dog run wild and destroy bird habitats. If he had taken that choice, would he have been ok to film her and her dog as evidence for the park authorities to ban her? Because until the point that she did leash her dog, he didn't know what she was going to do.

It looks like when he started filming her she was quiet and far away and about to leash her dog. There is no need to shout, I said she was racist and weaponising her femininity.

There is no injustice Amy Cooper has suffered. She knowingly endangered a man's life, short of hiring a hitman.

I am thrilled you find my comment ridiculous. I dont know why victims of racism have to be polite and careful in choosing their words to be taken seriously, or else the focus becomes how we voiced our concerns. That is some privilege you have there to be able to find outrage and victimhood when someone is clearly in the wrong

Once again, his intention for filming is of little relevance unless you are unreasonably trying to justify her reaction.

No, I’m glad he filmed it. But I can see why people ask.

@Pixieblue
If you are bothered more by how people react to injustice, than the injustice itself, you are invested in oppression.

That's one of the clearest statements of truth I have ever heard and I wish I had understood it all my working life when I have either had be silent and submissive in the face of injustice or be accused of bullying for speaking up in the 'wrong way'.

Pixie

If you're referring to me below I didn't say your comment was ridiculous. I said it was reductive.

This is due to the comment in your previous post that posters objecting to the use of the meme Karen are invested in oppression and thus by definition racist.

I was pointing that that it's perfectly possible to find Amy Coopers racist behaviour reprehensible and utterly unjustifiable whilst simultaneously disliking the use of the Karen meme to describe her.

I dont know why victims of racism have to be polite and careful in choosing their words to be taken seriously

I'm not suggesting anyone has to be polite or careful to be taken seriously.

Call her what she is - a racist who used white woman privilege to try and intimidate a black man.

The issue I have with the Karen meme is that it's origins are not clear and neither is how it's used.

Yes I appreciate some people use it to describe white female privilege but it's also used as a derogatory term for all (generally middle aged) women who have the temerity to stand up for themselves and is rooted in misogyny.

Yes, you can find the use of the term Karen problematic and critique its ageist elements, but let's not get distracted and make any kind of false equivalence here. Amy Cooper's behaviour could have killed Christian Cooper. The use of the term Karen does not reflect the oppression underlying Amy Cooper's behaviour. But this is how racism works. It is distraction, it is obfuscation. Karen is not the victim here.

All that may be true but I think focusing on your hurt feelings when a conversation about a black man's life being endangered, and pausing the conversation to focus on that point alone and asking black women to stop using that term and apologise while our sons, fathers, brothers, uncles and husbands are being murdered by the people meant to protect us, is a special kind of privilege I cannot fathom.

It says your feelings are more important than our lives, our lives, nnot our feelings but our fucking lives. I am raising a black son in a world where I will have to worry about his safety and teach him he can never be upset in public as this will be used as a reason to justify murdering him.

There is a time and place for the Karen discussion but that is not in the midst of a conversation about black men being murdered and cannot be made the focal point. Its unjustifiable

Pixie

I'm not focusing on my hurt feelings (I'm not hurt) and I'm in no way suggesting that they are more important than the issue at hand.

I've made my position very clear wrt Amy's conduct and white privilege on the previous thread.

I simply disagree with your assertion where you brought up the Karen meme that objecting to it made you racist.

I'd agree with you that the Karen meme isn't nor should it become the focal point of thread, but feel equally neither should people who object to that term be labelled as racist as per your post at 15.13 suggests because calling someone racist is (and should be) a powerful thing.

My post at 15:13

If you are bothered more by how people react to injustice, than the injustice itself, you are invested in oppression

Did not call anyone racist. It says you may be interested in preserving the status quo because it serves your interest.

That is not limited to the Karen meme, it applies to every single obfuscation and distraction or point made to defend Amy Cooper's behaviour.

Also why also is calling someone racist a bigger crime in this world than someone actually being racist or engaging in racist behaviour?

People are quick to speak up about sexism but when someone does a clearly racist thing then there are 101 reasons why there are not racist and it is not clear cut, and "how dare you call me racist?"

Keeping quiet and trying to muddy the waters when racist things happen show that you are complicit.

You are literally proving every single point raised in the article I linked above.

Who knows what happened eh? Who knows what she had said or done to cause him to start filming her? We only see when the film started, not what happened before then.

Isn't this the kind of priviliege afforded the white men who literally killed black men: who knows what he (black man) did before the gun magically went off, who knows what happened before we saw the gun flying out of the murderer's innocent white person's hands and just killing the black man, the black man could have just told him to shut up before the filming started and I don't blame the white man for shooting him at that point, we don't know what he did to cause someone to kneel on his neck till he stopped breathing, we don't know why the black woman was bodyslammed on the ground by the police! She could have been talking back, it's normal to ask.

Can't we say the same thing about Amy? Do we know what she did to cause Mr Cooper to film her? No but we speculate against Mr Cooper rather than against Amy?

The camera man is at fault immediately but the murderer had a justifiable reason. Just like Amy had a justifiable reason to be a racist POS!

Well done, you lot! Well fucking done! Let's ignore the big picture here and harp on the harmless action that is filming someone you're in an altercation with.

Pixie

You're deliberately misconstruing what I've said.

As you put it the focus of this thread should not derailed by discussions on the Karen meme.

I've posted what I wanted to say regardless of how you've decided to interpret it so I'll bow out no as not to derail the thread further.

Gooigi, I don’t know about US law.

Under U.K. law I would assume that saying that on the internet fell under incitement to racial hatred, and so was illegal.

Even if it wasn’t, it was said using a Facebook account which almost certainly connects to the person’s employer, especially when the man’s role was as a public servant.

It would be similar to the firefighter who made rape comments from an account where he made it clear he was a firefighter.

But if he'd said it aloud and someone had happened to be filming, that would be okay?

Something being wrong, something being illegal and something being a reason for dismissal to work are three different overlapping categories.

If you were filmed inciting racial hated then there would be footage of you committing a crime, which would also be a sackable offence and wrong.

Except the police officer didn't do anything illegal, any more than Cooper did. Why did the former deserve to be fired and the latter didn't?

I think I have answered pretty clearly.

I would consider that police officer to have done something illegal in the U.K.

The fact that he wasn’t found to have done so in the US could have been because the laws are different there or it could be because the police in the US are frequently not prosecuted for committing racist crimes.

I also think making a false report to the police is a crime. So it is still up for debate if she was breaking the law.

AFIAK there is no such crime as 'inciting racial hatred' in the USA. He's protected by the first amendment.

I just don't understand why what he did warranted him losing his job and what she did is some 1984 thing. Just because she was being filmed rather than if she posted it on facebook?

There is a balance between an employer’s reputation and privacy. In the case of the police, health care providers etc there is a greater weight in favour of the employer because they are public servants.

Where you did the thing that brought you into disrepute is relevant to privacy. If you say it to the world on a public Facebook account which lists your workplace- no expectation of privacy. In a private conversation in a public place- debatable. In your own home and you are secretly recorded - should go in favour of employee.

But all of this is about the rights of the employer vs. Employee. It is about the employer’s reputation.

It isn’t actually a way of punishing wrongdoers, nor does it actually work in that way, because all the previous people this happened to in high profile shaming incidents just got new jobs of a similar level.

What is 1984ish isn’t whether or not people actually get sacked. What is like 1984 is the expectation of people online that the best way for the public to deal with behaviour they don’t like is to go to the person’s employer, thus treating employers as if they are the state.

Also why also is calling someone racist a bigger crime in this world than someone actually being racist or engaging in racist behaviour?

White privilege.