The deeper story of the confrontation between the “Central Park Karen” and birdwatcher Christian Cooper
I don’t usually recommend long podcasts, but I listened to this one last night and found it extraordinary and well worth a hearing. It’s a detailed exploration of what happened last year in a story that went viral.
You probably recall it – the woman shrieking, holding her dog, threatening to call the cops on an “African-American man” (her description) named Christian Cooper (who made the video), and the results: she was doxxed, threatened, and fired from her job. Since I read a lot of news, and because in particular I read news both in the MSM and outside of it, I already knew some of the things on this podcast that the MSM failed (I believe purposely) to report, things that would have changed the thrust and meaning of the story quite a bit. Therefore I would guess that, for the vast majority of people these details would probably all be new if they listened to this podcast (which they most likely won’t).
Bari Weiss is the interviewer and the man being interviewed is Kmele Foster, who did some in-depth research on the story and also interviewed Amy Cooper (the “Karen”of the tale). She is now in hiding and has been since a short while after the incident. Part of Foster’s interview with Amy Cooper appears on the podcast, as well. I salute Foster for his fairness, thoroughness, and even for his courage, because touching this story is something that took bravery. Kmele Foster is a black man, by the way.
Here is the link again.
One element of the story that didn’t surprise me and won’t surprise most readers here is the way in which the MSM shaped their coverage to sensationalize what happened and to make Amy Cooper the clear villain and Christian Cooper the innocent victim. Distortions by the MSM are old news, but it seems that Bari Weiss is still learning how duplicitous and misleading the paper for which she formerly worked, The New York Times, often is, and how destructive this can be.
My rather dry recitation doesn’t really convey the intensity of the podcast, in particular what Amy Cooper has to say.
Robert Barnes represented Amy Cooper and there are several interviews with him about her on YouTube both with Viva Frei and others.
Griffin:
Do you have any links? I’d like to take a look.
In the above podcast, you actually hear her telling the story. And reading some of the hate mail she got.
Can’t someone watch and give me an executive summary of what she says?
neo,
Here he is with Dave Rubin. Other stuff in this interview too.
I know they have talked about on the VivaFreiBarnes Sunday livestream but I can’t find the isolated bit right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE5fYqAn54g
Beware Birders of Color.
Ugh. VivaFrei has a LOT of videos but I can’t find the one where he and Barnes talked about Amy Cooper maybe it was just during the conversation and Viva didn’t make a clip out of it.
Ok here is the specific part with Barnes from the Dave Rubin interview. It’s 12 minutes long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0CP1F1HTd8
Being a Troll and all, I couldn’t care less for the facts of the case. We love our minutiae around these parts and shy away from the Big Picture.
What matters to me is that Karens are getting blowback from the Diversity. Too many of them think that they can afford their feckless destructive politics because all the resulting shit will be borne by White Men. When Karen begins to feel visceral fear and grasps that she can’t get her tingles from Mystery Meat *and* be protected by Media and the State from said Diversity, then and only then there’s hope that Karen will wake the #$%^ up and vote more sensibly and at least declare a truce with White Males. Actual apologies and self-aware contrition would be too much to hope for.
Ok here is the specific part with Barnes from the Dave Rubin interview. It’s 12 minutes long.
The person who fired her has a name. The people who will not hire her have names too. She’s having trouble because corporate America is dominated by hollow men who value appearances over skills.
Kate:
I listened to it on my phone through a bluetooth while I was doing housework, which means I was double-tasking but it was easy to follow.
Per Zaphod above, the shock when “woke” individuals suddenly learn that they too are vulnerable is piquant (“Appealingly provocative”)
I have no beef with Bari Weiss, but she and a whole crowd of intellectual dark web people spent tons of time on politics and current events and yet took years to figure out that we hicks on the right side of the spectrum had a case. C’mon guys, what does that tell you about your intellect and character?
There’s probably some way to re-work Reagan’s quip:
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
A depression is when you lose yours.
Kate,
The part from 1:00 to 1:30 is the most pertinent parts in my opinion. The interviewer asks her what she would say to Christian Cooper and she answers ‘you scared me’.
What has happened to her is very troubling.
The fact that within hours she was getting inundated with death threats on her cell phone goes to show once again that there are an awful lot of empty, evil people in this world.
Whether true or not, making an example of a Karen was needed. It supports and advances the narrative. Whites who accuse a black man or even a ‘person of color’ of anything, risk everything.
White people who don’t “know their place” are now personna non grata in blue America. This is about revenge for imagined wrongs, debasement of the ‘other’ and appeasement.
Geoffrey Britain;
Actually, it seems to have been Christian Cooper who was the Karen, if you listen to the story.
I understand your point, though.
One interesting point was when Bari Weiss hypothesized that if the roles were reversed and Amy was the bird watcher and did the exact same things as Christian and Christian was the dog walker and did the same things as Amy then she would have still been vilified as a ‘Karen’.
One again Z shows he is a troll, everything is just grist for his mill. Always dialed to 11.
I don’t own a bluetooth earpiece; find them intolerable. An internet search revealed a couple of written items; apparently, she says he did in fact threaten her, that she was alone in the park with her dog, and when she said she’d call 911 he began filming her and totally changed his tone for the camera.
Kate,
No, not really. He had a past history of the exact same behavior including with a black dog walker the week before and another thing was she sounded hysterical on the 911 call because the operator couldn’t hear her so she had to repeat everything. Also it’s not hard to interpret his comments as a threat so it would be somewhat understandable to react the way she does.
The fact that this guy was willing to unleash all this and has never spoke to her since that morning is unbelievable. They try to give him credit for not wanting to press charges but that is weak also because the her life was already destroyed before that.
Thanks, Griffin, so even worse than what I read.
The moral is, I suppose, is to get out the phone and begin recording the moment anything seems to be going wrong, and don’t trust anybody. Sad world.
Very worthwhile listening Neo. Lots to think about. So easy to rush to judgment. But the recount of the cruelty of strangers was especially sorrowful.
Sharon W,
Yes, hearing Amy read what some stranger sent her hours after the incident was awful. There are a lot of evil, soulless people out there and they are all on twitter I swear.
Griffin:
I hear some of those twitter folks are also on Gab and could be here too? 🙂
om,
Yep, they are everywhere but in this specific case this guy’s sister posted the video on twitter and that led to Amy’s doxxing and the ruination of her life as she knew it.
Her telling of how the avalanche of hate hit her just a few hours after the event is horrifying and scary. Seriously could happen to anyone.
It is interesting and a bit funny to read the pure ignorance of those above that believe the media that Amy is the Karen who deserved push back. She was just playing with her dog when the guy, who went to social seminars on how to confront undesirable dog walkers, decides to make a scene and selfie it. Indeed, it is the examination of the minutiae that brings about this revelation. The big picture is the headline the media used to obscure events and some of you just admitted to being easy marks for their deception. Suckers.
Christian Cooper might be the worst celebrity coward in the country, and he has lots of competition. The lesson to learn here: if you’re white, don’t ever have anything to do with black people. If interaction is forced upon you, record everything. No, all black people aren’t evil, but do you really want to play with the odds as they now stand? Maybe in ten years it’ll be different, but I wouldn’t bet on it. What are the incentives for black people not to race grift? Will that change in ten years? I’m not hopeful.
Towards the end of Bari Weiss’s podcast, she notes that Christian Cooper didn’t participate in the process to mount a legal prosecution against Amy Cooper, and I think that’s telling. In a trial, a full account of his behavior would have become a matter of public record. Maybe the New York Times would have found a way to twist legal testimony in his favor, but other news outlets might not have been so compliant. In the end, he would have opened himself up to a lawsuit by Amy Cooper. The recent history of black victims of supposed racism is full of lies.
The setting and tone of the Ramble encounter do not flatter either party. It is safe to say that the universal sympathy felt for New York and New Yorkers after 9/11 has long evaporated. Moreover, there’s been a similar evolution in attitudes toward blue city residents across the country, whom some of the rest of us now regard as smash and grab thieves. Worse still, we are painfully aware of the unjust imprisonment and cruel treatment of our MAGA brothers and sisters at the hands of barbaric jailers and their FBI/DOJ/Antifa/BLM allies. A pox on them all. I avoid them whenever I can.
Banned Lizard:
Just curious – did you listen to the podcast?
@Leland:
Power up those frontal lobes and grok deeply.
I’m (and at least one other commentator) am not interested in the justice or injustice of this particular Karen’s case. She’s a statistic. What matters is that Karens need to feel the Fear. Good and Hard. Karen voting patterns and Tweet-storm FaceBook pile-on behaviour has done a lot to enable the current #$%^ed up state of affairs in the West.
She was reported as a “karen”. He has a history of aggressive confrontations with “people of canine”. There is no evidence that diversity [dogma] (e.g. racism) was a motive. There was a trial by press, and she was convicted by a jury of em-pathetic people… persons, perhaps bird lovers.
That said, diversity of individuals, minority of one. Baby Lives Matter
Neo:
(back from a long walk) Yes, although I had to take breaks due to the indigestible unpleasantness. What an abominable scene. To paraphrase from Fiddler, may the Lord bless and keep these people far away.
Very good podcast, she was wrong color and served as a Judas goat for the media.
The vilification of white women by the left/racist/progs and those of Z’s mindset is “interesting.” Those white women who are showing up to school board meetings and resisting the CRT indoctrination must be especially evil, and deserving to get “it” good and hard, eh Z?
Whatever works in your brave new world? Easter Island is calling you, the stone heads anyway.
It’s very interesting that Christian Cooper engaged in behavior identical to that of the Oakland woman who was vilified as “BBQ Becky” several years ago.
Christian Cooper, a black man, called out a white woman who was flouting the rules by having her dog off leash in a birdwatching area of Central Park.
“BBQ Becky,” a white woman, called out a group of black men who were illegally using a charcoal-fired grill in an area along Lake Merritt (my former neighborhood) where only gas-fired grills were permitted, given the presence of dry vegetation and the danger of fire.
But Christian Cooper is a hero, and “BBQ Becky” is a racist.
Coda: Posts on Nextdoor confirm that the area in question along Lake Merritt has descended into near-constant lawlessness in addition to fire danger as emboldened scofflaws continue to grill with charcoal, regulations are not enforced, and the intimidation of citizens and police invites other crimes of opportunity and premeditation.
The birdwatcher was very gracious and forgiving after the incident. I shouldn’t have assumed that this was just ostentation but that he was covering.
People aren’t automatons. Amy Cooper’s life was ruined over this because of the dispositions and behavior of garbage people in her company and in the commercial segment in which she was employed. You recall that Atlanta police officer subject to malicious prosecution for shooting a man who attacked him? His stepmother was fired from her job because reasons. Our professional-managerial class is liberally salted with garbage people.
Judging people from a place of ignorance is not a winning strategy for gaining support. It is a good way to remain a loser.
I dug through this last week.
Amy Cooper wasn’t blameless, but Cooper lost all my sympathy when it became clear that this was a scenario he prepared for in advance, with relish it would seem.
Cooper is also a long-time LGBTQ activist, writes for that agenda in Marvel and DC Comics, and is using the Central Park incident for his career.
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Cooper was Marvel’s first openly gay writer and editor.[4] He introduced the first gay male character in Star Trek, Yoshi Mishima, in the Starfleet Academy series,[4] which was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award in 1999.[5] He also introduced the first openly lesbian character for Marvel, Victoria Montesi[4][6] and created and authored Queer Nation: The Online Gay Comic.[7] Cooper was also an associate editor for Alpha Flight #106 in which the character Northstar came out as gay.[4][8]
Personal life
In the 1980s, he was president of the Harvard Ornithological Club, and is currently on the Board of Directors for NYC Audubon.[9] Cooper has a long history of LGBT activism including being the co-chair of the board of directors of GLAAD in the 1980s.[10][11]
On May 25, 2020, Cooper played a key role in the Central Park birdwatching incident,[12] which led to the creation of Black Birders Week.[13] The incident is also the basis for his online comic book about racism, illustrated by Alitha Martinez and published by DC Comics, called “It’s a Bird”.[14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Cooper
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So Amy Cooper’s life is destroyed and Cooper gets to put more feathers in his SJW cap.
One of the weird coincidences in this story is they both have the last name of Cooper which can lead to much confusion when reading and writing about it.
huxley:
You say that Amy Cooper isn’t blameless. What would you say she is to blame for?
Griffin:
Agreed. I had to be careful about that when writing the post.
Too many coopers
one called the copers
she is the villian
but he was the aggressor.
A guick search in the web for Amy Cooper and you find the same one sided demonization of Amy is still
the party line; ABC, NPR, NYmag.
What would you say she is to blame for?
neo:
The obvious. She didn’t have her dog on the leash.
It isn’t really a case where Weiss is “learning” anything about her fellow journalists- she always knew, but just eventually ended up facing the pointy end of the bayonet in an unexpected situation. So, while I welcome her to the party, I do want to ask her why it only happened after such things no longer benefitted her.
Also, unleashed dogs in public grounds are a menace, always. Sure, your dog may be completely harmless, but I don’t know that.
When I worked as lineman we had a saying. Little dog … Little problem. I’ve never seen a little dog that i couldn’t stamp my foot and scare away.
Now … Big dog … Big problem.
A little yippy dog runs at my feet in public unleashed is going to get booted a fair distance. Keep it on a leash.
Of course one of the issues was the off leash dog park was closed because of Covid (idiots) so that was why she was where she was. Not to excuse her behavior but this guy was searching out people like her to confront.
…but this guy was searching out people like her to confront.
Griffin:
Exactly. And it went beyond being a creep. As an SJW activist he had external incentives to create an incident — he could use it as material for publication and propaganda.
Yancey Ward:
If her description of the beginning of the confrontation is correct, her dog did not go over to him yipping at his feet initially. I’m doing this from memory, and I’m not planning to listen again, but that’s my recollection.
Griffin:
I also seem to recall (I’m doing this from memory) that she had been walking the dog in a part of the park where dogs are allowed to be unleashed, and then took a shortcut through this other part of the park (with few people) where they are supposed to be leashed, but that she wasn’t aware of the rule change. Again, I’m doing this from memory, so I could be wrong about that.
neo:
According to Bari Weiss’s substack article, Christian Cooper carried doggie treats with him and attempted to lure Amy’s dog:
_____________________________________________________
For starters, there was the Facebook post that Christian shared when he uploaded the original video, which his sister posted on Twitter in the hours after the encounter. In the post, Christian recorded his contemporaneous account of what happened in the moments before the camera started rolling. “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,” Christian recounted himself saying to Amy. He also shared that he’d pulled out “the dog treats I carry for just for [sic] such intransigence.”
I had read an embarrassing number of stories and social media takes about this brief conflict. Not a single one of them had mentioned this public Facebook post.
He threatened her, I thought, stunned. He says himself that he approached her — a woman alone in a wooded area. He tried to lure away her dog. How was this the first time I was reading these details? Had I just missed them in the other stories I’d read?
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-real-story-of-the-central-park
_____________________________________________________
The story just gets creepier and creepier.
I dare say that the white women protesting CRT at school board meetings is exactly the outcome Z is hoping for when the army of Karens is confronted by the world they’re creating. Those women are effectively “reformed Karens”
This story is only newsworthy for me because of what happened to her after. If this was two honest actors meeting in a park I may even slightly side with Christian but he was not an honest actor and what he did afterward directly led to the destruction of her life as she knew it.
Like a jaywalker getting the death sentence. Her actions didn’t warrant any of this and reflects directly on him and apparently his sister also.
I daresay that no outcome of women defending their rights or their children would be good according to Z. I daresay you haven’t paid attention to Z’s “wisdom.”
And to further daresay, for some of the left all white women are oppressors, all are “Karens.” I don’t know if it is the race thing or the ultimate trans thing. There seem to be a lot of twisted trans in Antifa IMO.
Thanks so much for pointing to this extraordinarily well done podcast, Neo.
A witch hunt (e.g. selfiesh distribution), a warlock trial (e.g. trial by press), allegations of diversity (e.g. racism), protests when politically congruent (“=”). A Pro-Choice religion (e.g. denial of men and women’s dignity and agency, reducing human life to a negotiable property). A low trust society through social progress.
@deadrody, om:
It’s just the way of the world that more innocents will have to suffer before there’s a big enough tide of Reaction capable of setting off a Preference Cascade.
I’m stating what I think needs to happen. I’m not making the rules or making a moral case for more innocents being destroyed. But still it just has to be this way. You don’t like it.. go re-code human DNA.
Z:
Thank for sharing your vast knowledge of human nature and Americans in particular.
Now on to manipulating the human genome in order to improve human society. Because Science! You are such a hoot!