'Central Park Karen' Denies Any Responsibility In 2020 Clash

Late2TheParty@lemmy.world to Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 108 points –
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The Lion, The Witch, and the Audacity of This Bitch

In a Newsweek essay, Amy Cooper says her actions were driven by “panic and vulnerability” and blames the Black man she accosted for the incident.

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She doesn't have the humility to admit she made a mistake, blames everyone else but herself, and then expects to talk it out with the guy she did this to? He has no reason to accommodate her.

And employers see though this too. She's not having trouble finding a job because of cancel culture, she's having trouble because employers realize how little self awareness she has, and she doesn't realize that her actions since the incident are making it all even worse.

Using the phrase cancel culture is such a self report about the speaker. Frankly I find it really useful, especially in the world of dating apps.

It is a wonderful red flag just everywhere. I've seen it on LinkedIn, social media, and of course bumper stickers. What a great way to let me know that I don't need to have a conversation with you ever.

All she had to do was apologize, say it was a misunderstanding, and walk she and her poor dog away. She could have just stood still and asked politely to be left alone. She could have given a good ol' New York "PISS AWWFFF".

She had a lot of options.

I understand maybe being a little startled in the moment, but she absolutely owns the reaction. Any reasonable person should have realized once the phone was pulled out to film the interaction that maybe it was time to chill.

Exactly. We all saw the video. Now there could have been so mething before hand, but somehow I doubt the birdwatcher came up to her and threatened her the way she's claiming. The way she's sounding he just marched up on her and started threatening her. Doubt

“I was a female, alone in a secluded area of Central Park, with a man yelling at me and threatening me,” she wrote.

Christian...said, "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", and beckoned the dog toward him with a dog treat.

She didn't know what he was going to do to the dog or what he was feeding it, so I can see feeling threatened by the interaction. It's still her fault for clear racial emphasis on her police call, and for disobeying the leash law in the first place. It's hard to feel sorry for her if she can't seem to understand her mistake, but at the same time I've read the reddit comments and can't imagine what kind of hate she probably received, maybe still does, and not being able to hold a job over it is a lot. Situation sucks.

Christian apparently got his own bird watching show by National Geographic, so that's nice.

You bring your kid into the bar. You sit your kid at the bar. The bar tender says "you can't do that, that's illegal, please take your kid away from the bar". You respond that you don't have to. They respond "if you're going to do what you want then I'm gonna do what I want". You go to juke box 40 feet away and pick some tunes. They slide the kid a drink. The drink could have anything in it. But it's water. They proceed to call the manager to escort you and the kid out of the bar. You call the cops because you felt threatened. Is that or is that not an overreaction? Probably. Should you have felt threatened? Maybe. But nothing stopped you from preventing your kid from taking the drink. Nothing stopped you from complying with the bartender. And nothing stopped you from leaving the bar of your own volition.

I fully understand that she might have felt threatened. But you don't get to put yourself in a dangerous situation where you are breaking the law and then call foul when someone else requests that you don't.

She didn't call the police to make a complaint that a man had beckoned to her dog with a dog treat. She completely overrated and overrepresented the situation as perilous on purpose to get the reaction she wanted.

He specifically requests in a level tone that she not approach him. She refuses and makes demands that he stop recording. When she threatens to call the police he requests that she do so again in a level tone. When she does speak to the police this is what she says to the dispatcher:

"I'm in The Ramble, and there's a man, African American, he's got a bicycle helmet. He's recording me and threatening me and my dog," she tells the emergency dispatcher."

She specifically lists his race. She doesn't say he's 5'10 or 250 pounds or that he has a scar on his left cheek. She says he is African American.

She doesn't even start recording on her own phone to get a visual of him that would allow the police to find him in the event that's he does hurt her or the dog.

We never see him approach her in the video. At one point when the dispatcher doesn't respond the way she wants she starts screaming.

"I'm sorry. I can't hear. Are you there? I'm being threatened by a man in The Ramble. Please send the cops immediately!" she screams."

This is theater. This is her using who she is and the benefits of her privilege to get a specific reaction or downplay any repercussions or consequences that might come of her behavior.

Women often go through extreme measures to protect themselves from assault or worse. One such measure to prevent this situation was to leash her pet.

I'm not going to defend what she did. She was to have the dog off leash, and she was wrong to call the Police with the emphasis she did. I do however think saying “if you’re going to do what you want then I’m gonna do what I want” would rightfully scare anyone. That was a really weird thing to say. She's still wrong, but I can't imagine that didn't escalate her reaction.