Loads of blame to go around in park encounter

The Amy Cooper vs. Christian Cooper saga is being told, unsurprisingly, as a story about race. That’s wrong. It’s actually a there-are-no-heroeshere story in which two obnoxious people, both the white woman who called the cops and the black man who was supposedly just birdwatching, deserve a share of the blame.

Yes, in the reality of contemporary American life, Amy committed a social felony: She called the cops and invoked Christian’s race with the clear idea that they’d respond faster from a white woman claiming to be threatened by a black man.

But did she deserve the heaping of scorn and ridicule? Does she deserve to be tagged a racist, plain and simple? Did she deserve to lose her job?

I answer: no, no and no. Ironically, Christian Cooper’s social media documentation is actually the best evidence that he was not guilt-free here.

His Facebook post includes a self-own for the ages:

“ME: Look, if you’re going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it. HER: What’s that? ME [to the dog]: Come here, puppy!

“HER: He won’t come to you.”

“ME: We’ll see about that… I pull out the dog treats I carry for just such intransigence. I didn’t even get a chance to toss any treats to the pooch before Karen scrambled to grab the dog.

“HER: DON’T YOU TOUCH MY DOG !!!!! ”

It is weird for a man to carry treats around for the express purpose of luring other people’s pets. It is creepy for him to say to a woman, “I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it.”

Christian and Amy, despite having the same last name, may not be related, but they’re part of the same family: They’re both privileged New Yorkers who can’t figure out how to live with one another.