Christian Cooper, the black guy, birdwatcher from NYC was on “The View” saying that he feels bad because the white lady who called cops on him lost her job, her dog and basically her entire life. Which brings into question this whole online “cancel culture.”
What is cancel culture? The term has been credited to Black Twitter. It refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for people and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.
It’s crazy and sad that our world has come to where social media dictates that a person’s entire life can be brought down and defined by a 30 second incident caught on video. No one is allowed to have a bad day anymore because you just never know who’s recording you and whether you’ll be the next guy/gal trending all over the world. I’m not defending Amy Cooper but goodness, her entire life is basically over. Losing a prestigious job at Franklin Templeton in these pandemic times makes her situation all the more worse.
Other Amy Coopers who share the same name with this lady are coming out stating they’ve been hounded by vicious online gangs, bullied and received numerous death threats. This is what it means to “cancel” someone or boycott them in very damaging ways. Has online shaming gone too far?
If anyone here has time, please watch Season 3 Episode 1 of Black Mirror (Nosedive). It depicts a world where people rate each other from one to five stars for every interaction they have, which can impact their socio-economic status. It’s a depressing show but I see a dystopian future ahead where people walk around with public scores on their heads depicting what kind of person they are.
Bless this guy’s heart, what a gracious man. I’m not sure I would have done the same thing if I were in his shoes.
Christian Cooper, who took a video of a white woman appearing to call the cops on him in Central Park, appeared on “The View” Thursday to discuss the reaction to his video, saying he’s been “uncomfortable” with some of the fallout. Amy Cooper has lost her job and her dog and has been receiving death threats.
“First of all, about the death threats: I’ve been unequivocal about that ever since I found out she was getting them. It’s abhorrent and it’s contrary. If you think what she did was wrong — that she was trying to bring death by cop down on my head — then there is absolutely no way you can justify then turning around and putting a death threat on her head. So that’s got to stop. That’s not acceptable. Everything else that’s happened to her — I don’t — I’m uncomfortable with defining someone by a couple of seconds of what they’ve done,” Cooper said.
He went on to call it a “stressful situation” and “moment of very poor judgement,” though he pointed out “there is no excusing that it was a racist act.”
The clip was posted on Twitter Monday by Cooper’s sister, who also appeared on “The View.” She wrote in the post, “Oh, when Karens take a walk with their dogs off leash in the famous Bramble in NY’s Central Park, where it is clearly posted on signs that dogs MUST be leashed at all times, and someone like my brother (an avid birder) politely asks her to put her dog on the leash.”
In the clip, the woman is seen threatening to call the cops on Cooper while holding her dog by the collar. She places a phone call and repeatedly identifies Cooper, a Harvard graduate and NYC Audubon Society board member, as “African American.” The dog rescue from which she got her dog posted an update Monday saying she voluntarily surrendered the animal after the “concerned public” reached out to the organization. On Tuesday, her employer, Franklin Templeton, announced she had been fired from her position as a head of insurance portfolio management. She subsequently issued a public apology.
“Does that define her entire life? I don’t know. Only she can tell us if that defines her entire life by what she does going forward and what she’s done in the past,” Cooper told “The View” Thursday. “I can’t answer that so the frenzy makes me uncomfortable.”
Central Park birdwatcher Christian Cooper tells us even though the viral incident “was a racist act,” he’s “uncomfortable with defining someone by a couple of seconds of what they’ve done” and condemns the death threats made against her.