Maybe Lives Do Need to Be Torn Apart
Before our nation erupted, Christian Cooper extended graciousness to the woman who had threatened him. The time for graciousness is done.
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As beautiful and powerful as forgiveness can be, I happen to believe that in some circumstances, “fuck you forever” can be just as virtuous. And in the case of a White woman knowingly calling the police to falsely accuse a Black man of threatening her life, completely aware of the potential consequences, then yes, fuck Amy Cooper forever.
Unfortunately, Christian Cooper feels differently. “Any of us can make — not necessarily a racist mistake, but a mistake,” he told The New York Times last week of the incident, which plausibly could have led to his untimely death. “And to get that kind of tidal wave in such a compressed period of time, it’s got to hurt. It’s got to hurt.”
“I’m not excusing the racism,” he continued, before he did exactly that: “But I don’t know if her life needed to be torn apart.”
Let me acknowledge that I am not Christian Cooper. I was not in his situation. Christian Cooper has every right to react to a situation involving…
