“I’m not excusing the racism,” he said. “But I don’t know if her life needed to be torn apart.”
Maybe it's because I just finished reading "A Tale of Two Cities" - a story of love, hate, and revenge set against the backdrop of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, in which many people's bodies, primarily of the nobility, were quite literally torn apart (September Massacres) - but this man's quote caught my attention and made me think of that time, at least in terms of the precipitous actions that culminated in the events that began in September of 1792.
I'm seeing all of these various incidents and events - black men being targeted with their lives threatened and entitled and/or paranoid white women (aka "Karens") being dragged over social media often with their livelihoods dismantled afterwards - and I'm wondering if/when the ax is going to fall. Not literally...hopefully not ever again literally. But there is tension, anger and violence continuing to escalate, and I'm wondering what it might ultimately lead to. Apart from the racial tensions, there is also the tension between the wealthy 1% and "all the rest."
In this particular incident, it was animals (an unleashed dog and some birds) that brought these two Coopers - Christian Cooper and Amy Cooper - together in the Ramble of Central Park in NYC. Amy Cooper was walking her dog, unleashed, which caused Christian, who was observing birds, to admonish Amy to leash her dog, as the signs posted around the park directed. Terse words were exchanged, and then Christian began to video what followed: Amy threatened him with calling the police to tell them that an "African American male" was threatening her life and that of her dog. She then went on to do just that. Thus concluded, not the only, but one of the more recent of incidents that puts yet another lens on racial tensions within modern American society. What followed is that within the span of a few days, Amy Cooper lost her dog and her job, and Christian Cooper is back in the park watching birds and feeling not-quite-comfortable with how this woman's life fell part within a short period of time.
Although this isn't quite like a Dickensian story with the overblown polarity between villains and heroes, there are obviously agitators and peacemakers across the lines. The rest fall "somewhere between" - not all bad but not all good - and I believe that these are the ones who make up the silent majority. That may be what's most unsettling of all.
Maybe it's because I just finished reading "A Tale of Two Cities" - a story of love, hate, and revenge set against the backdrop of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, in which many people's bodies, primarily of the nobility, were quite literally torn apart (September Massacres) - but this man's quote caught my attention and made me think of that time, at least in terms of the precipitous actions that culminated in the events that began in September of 1792.
I'm seeing all of these various incidents and events - black men being targeted with their lives threatened and entitled and/or paranoid white women (aka "Karens") being dragged over social media often with their livelihoods dismantled afterwards - and I'm wondering if/when the ax is going to fall. Not literally...hopefully not ever again literally. But there is tension, anger and violence continuing to escalate, and I'm wondering what it might ultimately lead to. Apart from the racial tensions, there is also the tension between the wealthy 1% and "all the rest."
In this particular incident, it was animals (an unleashed dog and some birds) that brought these two Coopers - Christian Cooper and Amy Cooper - together in the Ramble of Central Park in NYC. Amy Cooper was walking her dog, unleashed, which caused Christian, who was observing birds, to admonish Amy to leash her dog, as the signs posted around the park directed. Terse words were exchanged, and then Christian began to video what followed: Amy threatened him with calling the police to tell them that an "African American male" was threatening her life and that of her dog. She then went on to do just that. Thus concluded, not the only, but one of the more recent of incidents that puts yet another lens on racial tensions within modern American society. What followed is that within the span of a few days, Amy Cooper lost her dog and her job, and Christian Cooper is back in the park watching birds and feeling not-quite-comfortable with how this woman's life fell part within a short period of time.
Although this isn't quite like a Dickensian story with the overblown polarity between villains and heroes, there are obviously agitators and peacemakers across the lines. The rest fall "somewhere between" - not all bad but not all good - and I believe that these are the ones who make up the silent majority. That may be what's most unsettling of all.
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