This week has been anguishing as we learn of the police barbarity in Minneapolis and the outrageous behavior of at least two people in our nation as they attempted to make the color of one’s skin an issue for just being in society. (This is 2020!)
Many of the birds he spots stop by for the dense plants, so he approached the dog’s owner early on Monday with a request: Could she leash up the canine, as the park rules required?
Amy Cooper said she would be calling the police instead.
“I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” the white woman told him, pulling out her cellphone and dialing 911.
Less than 24 hours later after a video of their exchange went online, she has lost her dog, her anonymity, and her job — the latest incident in a long, too-familiar pattern of white people calling the police on black people for any number of everyday activities.
There was also this most disturbing incident where black people were treated as if they needed to have paperwork to prove who they were, and why they were somewhere a white man did not think they belonged. What in the world is wrong with people when they think their bigotry can just be unleashed as they please? In this case, Tom Austin, the managing partner of F2 Group, found his venture capitalist’s office lease was terminated after a viral video showed him questioning black entrepreneurs using the gym in a building of which they were all tenants. This is how the nation once had black swimming pools and drinking fountains.
The price for bigotry must be high, and higher still until those who need to be taught how to act in polite society have learned their lesson. Public shaming and national scorn are the correct measures to tamp down on the bigots and racists. Perhaps Amy Cooper and Tom Austin can hook up for coffee and white sheet shopping. They both are repugnant.
And they both were taught a valuable lesson this week. One that nation needed to witness, too.
And so it goes.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 