Central Park Incident

[Coyoacan]

I saw the video when it first came out and saw a woman who play-acted on the phone to the police while torturing her dog for sound effects and using the colour of the man's skin in the hope that he would be shot on sight by the police.

It turns out that, as a feminist, I should have seen a poor woman, scared of a man in an isolated area, making a call for help and giving a limited physical description of the man.

In one discussion, where I suggested solidarity with the mothers of teenage black boys who never know if their sons would come home again when they left the house, that that is not a feminist issue.

Does feminism trump the fight against racism?

"She may very well have been scared but what he actually did was to film her and to offer her dog a treat."

Early on after this video went viral I saw several people explaining that the offer of a treat should be understood as threatening because people objecting to dogs being in parks had poisoned them by acting friendly and offering or throwing them doctored treats.

newdiscourses.com/2020/07/mob-social-justice-dangerous-precedent-charging-amy-cooper/

"In Christian’s account, he is a concerned citizen who wants the dog on a leash, and proceeds to tell Amy that “If you are going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it” before calling her dog over to him. The film presumably starts moments later."

Her repeated emphasis in her phone call that it was an African American man threatening her was as odd as the way that she was handling her dog, almost strangling it! Maybe she would have reacted the same way if the man had been white but it is hard to imagine that she would have repeatedly described him as a white man, rather than just as a man. It went beyond making sure that the police had a better description than just "a man".

Something I don't like about the way this has been reported though is the stress on the man's "good character", ie. as evidenced by his academic background and the "respectable" hobby that brought him to that area.

The two aspects that stand out to me are:

1. It sounds all too similar to press coverage of actual male-on-female violence where the "credentials" of the perp are headlined rather than the offence.

1. He would be just as innocent of any offence if he was an unemployed school-dropout who had gone to that area of the park to steal bird eggs.

If it had all gone down much the same way but he had been white, would there have been quite so much emphasis on these facts (obviously unknown to the woman) as indicators of his "respectability"?

I wonder if there might be some "unconscious racial bias" at play in that reporting? A bit of "over-kill" because those reporting regard this black man as "special", ie. an academic bird-watcher is not a good fit with their own stereotyped thinking?

MoleSmokes

You could also imagine how Chris Cooper might have experienced himself as being a privileged African American due to the following:

1. the borders v dog walkers war, probably resulting in the cops likely being familiar with him and with the frequent conflicts, you can imagine the cop radio "aw man, it's that Chris Cooper and another dog walker"
2. the fact that he is highly educated, well groomed and presented and well spoken for anyone, whatever the colour of their skin
3. he is an out gay man and this could be used as a defence should an Amy type suddenly claim that he was attempting to violate her
4. given that he is a veteran of the birders v dog walkers war and highly intelligent he is very likely cognisant of what action he can take while remaining within the law
5. just as I, as someone who has boxed and trained martial arts for years, feel duty bound to intervene in situations where others are to scared to do so, Chris Cooper, aware of his relatively privileged situation, may also feel duty bound to intervene. My back up is the ability to defend myself physically, his is his ability to defend himself via his reputation and coolness.

I wonder if there might be some "unconscious racial bias" at play in that reporting? A bit of "over-kill" because those reporting regard this black man as "special", ie. an academic bird-watcher is not a good fit with their own stereotyped thinking?

The ironic thing is that Chris Cooper is not that special. Lots of men with African ancestry who are musicians, lawyers, academics, artists, professional athletes, physicians, surgeons, the list is endless, end up targeted by cops or perceived as the archetypal "dangerous black man" by various people purely because of their African ancestry.

The whole issue is that what happened to Chris Cooper happens to lots of men of African ancestry all the time. Some are highly reputable professionals and when this happens it can get into the press and the mainstream media.

When it happens to some ordinary hard working man, even if he has a friend or relative with a video capable phone nearby, it is unlikely to go viral.

2. He would be just as innocent of any offence if he was an unemployed school-dropout who had gone to that area of the park to steal bird eggs.

I do not think that this is true. Stealing wild bird eggs is a criminal matter here and probably stateside too.

If it had all gone down much the same way but he had been white, would there have been quite so much emphasis on these facts (obviously unknown to the woman) as indicators of his "respectability"?

If he was white she wouldn't have emphasised his skin colour in her ridiculous phone call to the police. Given how trigger happy some US cops are known to be one could feasibly argue that the phone call was an attempt at "death by cop" using the fact he is African Amercian as an aggravating factor.

She brought his race into it when threatening to call the police, and she then did call the police and bullshitted about his behaviour, while stressing that he was black.

Feminism means I see women as entitled to equal rights. It also means I recognise we're disproportionately at risk of crime, as opposed to having crime committed against us. It means I recognise that in many contexts, we suffer from a power imbalance. I support all women dealing with those things, whether or not I like them, admire them, or think they're decent people.

That doesn't mean I support women no matter how they behave, or see us as always the least powerful in any given situation. She chose to use race as a way to assert power here, and I can't, won't and don't support that.

Is she inherently racist, or just one of those people who can't stand to be wrong, and will use any and all options to try to 'win' in any confrontation? No clue, and I don't much care. Black men are disproportionately targeted and harmed by police action, and in the US, where all their cops are armed, some are trigger happy. She knew that. Everyone knows that. And she still decided to use his race to try to win a petty dispute. She was escalating, by letting him know she felt she had more power than he did - that his race meant he had to defer to her, or she'd involve the police.

She chose to go there, so she can cope with the consequences of that without my support.