This violent week gave us a martyr, a tragedy, and a whole wave of riots. It has also given us a whole new category of social-political animal: the Amy Cooper species of liberal, whose progressive views are conditioned on her convenience and snap at the first sign of strain.
Cooper is the dog walker who confronted bird-watcher Christian Cooper (no relation) in the Ramble in Central Park in Manhattan on May 24 and threatened to call the police on him. Actually, it was Christian Cooper, who is both male and black, who first confronted Amy Cooper and asked her to put her dog on its leash — required in that part of the park, because loose dogs are disturbing to birds and bird-watchers.
Cooper’s response was to threaten to call the police — but not only to call the police but also to tell them that she was being threatened specifically by an “African American.” This has a meaning all of its own — an accusation of sexual aggression by a black male of any age whatsoever (Emmett Till was only 14 years of age when he was lynched in 1955) is a serious threat to the life of the black male in question.
Fortunately, Christian Cooper had a cell phone on, so this was all being recorded. He made the footage public. Of course, it was she who lost her reputation, her job, and her hopes for the future — the very fate she had wished upon him.
Amy Cooper was found to be a Democrat, a Hillary Clinton supporter, and supposedly a supporter of the civil rights movement and the good, true, and beautiful — along with being a foe of the Republican Party and all that it’s thought to entail. She would no doubt describe herself as an ardent defender of the rights of nonwhites and others among the less privileged.
She supports civil rights in the same way that Clinton supports the women’s rights movement: fine when it helps political allies, not so important when it doesn’t. Of course, Amy Cooper supports Democrats and Clinton, for whom she even raised money. Presumably, she thinks Anita Hill told the truth, that Clarence Thomas is a race traitor, that conservatives are all racists even when proven innocent, and that liberals are innocent even when proven guilty.
When protests break out in blue states and cities, or when one wants to walk one’s dog leashless and some clueless black bird-watcher gets in one’s way, people like Cooper view African Americans as less useful.
“It’s not the person in the Ku Klux Klan that we have to worry about,” author Van Jones said recently. “It’s the white liberal Hillary Clinton supporter walking her dog in Central Park.”
Who knew Pantsuit Nation was the refuge of scoundrels? If we didn’t, we know it now.
