It's been a brutal week so far. We've lurched from New York City's Central Park, where a woman named Amy Cooper was caught on camera by a birdwatcher named Christian Cooper (no kin) as she played the white-victim game after he called her out for failure to restrain a pet dog ...
... to Minneapolis, where a white police officer named Derek Chauvin cold-bloodedly murdered George Floyd in full public view and despite pleas from bystanders.
If a modestly heroic figure emerged from this mess, I suppose it was Mr. Cooper (at left), a Harvard-educated gay rights activist, biomedical editor --- and birdwatcher. His presence of mind disarmed a potentially dangerous situation and shamed his accuser, temporarily disrupting her life. And that's why I've used his photo here. Besides, he's pretty --- not to objectify or anything.
Looking for social media guidance through the mess this morning I came upon an article written by Karen Fleshmen and headlined, "White Women: We Are Amy Cooper." If written from a different perspective, a similar article could have been headlined, "White Men: We Are Derek Chauvin."
Here are the lines that jumped out at me from Fleshmen's article: "You may be thinking: 'I’m not Amy Cooper. I don’t have any part in this.' Part of white privilege is feeling entitled to be perceived as an individual and not as a representative of our entire race. Another part of white privilege is not to feel responsible for the behavior of other white people.
"People of color never get those privileges. They are always perceived as representatives of their entire group."
Food for thought as another day dawns during this spring of our collective discontent.
No comments:
Post a Comment