Little Amy Coopers Everywhere

Four months ago, the Internet had a new villain.

Amy Cooper, the white woman who not only called the police on Christian Cooper, a Black man, but put on an entire performance seemingly designed to paint Christian Cooper as some sort of imposing monster simply because he asked her to put her dog on a leash.

When video of the incident was released, Amy Cooper lost her job and became a symbol.

But a symbol of what?

Racism?

Sure.

But from my point of view, it seemed like it should go further than that.

Because when the Amy Cooper Affair went down, one thing I kept seeing on Twitter were people speaking up saying "We know people like this."

And the truth is--

We do.

We all do.

I could be going out on a limb here, but I feel like as someone in a creative field, I know more than my fair share of Amy Coopers, and when the very fair question comes up about what someone like me does to stop the Amy Coopers of the world from Amy Cooper-ing, I try not to be defensive about it, but there seems to be a point where racism and sexism meet, and it becomes difficult for me, a white guy, to answer the question the way I'd like to with honesty.

But here we go, let's give it a shot.

When I run into an Amy Cooper, the reason I immediately begin walking on eggshells is because Amy Coopers are very, very aware that they aren't just white--they're women. To be clear, they're white women and while I know I'm going to get dragged for saying this, I'm not the first one to point out that while, yes, men are trash, including me, there is a section of the white female population that is a huge f***ing problem.

If you go back and watch the video of the interaction between Cooper and Cooper--and it's not an easy watch--you can see that she's dealing with him alternatively as both as a white person feigning fear of a Black person, and a white woman in fear of a Black man, and there is a distinction there.

I have never been on the other side of someone pretending to be intimidated by me based on my race, but I've definitely experienced the latter. That's not to say that I think in my entire life I've never come across as intimidating to a woman. It's saying that there is a segment of the white female population who, because yes, we live in a patriarchal society that is inherently more dangerous if you're a woman, that has decided their best way to survive in the world is to wield their own perceived danger as a weapon.

In some ways, you have to sympathize. White women are still women. The problem is that the Amy Coopers of the world are that special kind of person who decided that every obstacle in their lives, every moment when they're criticized, every confrontation--is them being victimized even when they're dealing with another person who has clearly experienced victimization themselves.

Once they reach the point where they've decided it's them against the world, there is no space for anyone else to hold the conversation.

I noticed that this weekend, when RBG passed away, and the moral half of the nation was mourning, I saw blips of Amy Coopers popping up everywhere with petty problems and grievances, seemingly unaware of what was going on in the world outside their own head. Now, it's possible that this event that would mean continued untold oppression of women was setting them off, but throughout this pandemic, there's been a pattern of people addicted to attention acting out on all platforms--I know, one more reason to quit social media--for no reason other than that nobody was really paying attention to them and their usual gripes and groans weren't even getting the bare minimum of enabling that happens in the Likes and Comments.

Yes, I said enabling, because social media is a gift to Amy Coopers.

It allows them to find the one thing they crave more than anything--justification for their bad behavior. I swear, if Typhoid Mary were on Facebook, somebody in the comments would be saying "If you feel fine, then that's good enough for me. When you bringing over some chowder?"

I've heard the reasonable suggestion that white women need to (forgive the wording here) police each other, and truthfully, anytime I've seen a non-Amy Cooper call out an Amy Cooper it was like watching a nuclear explosion (usually there's still the deployment of the buzzwords their fourth therapist gave them to win every argument--gaslighting, trauma, etc. All real things, but all things that are definitely not supposed to help you win a Facebook fight, and words that imply if you're suffering from them, you probably shouldn't be on social media at all anyway) and when two Amy Coopers go head-to-head it's like in Back to the Future II where they warn that two Marty's meeting each other will rip a hole in the space time continuum. You can't look directly at the quarrel. Your irises will flame out. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to happen all that often, because Amy Coopers are like alpha predators. They hunt alone and they have a strange sort of respect for each other.

Why I think this particular person struck a chord, in addition to the ongoing conversation we're having about race in this country, is that even white people with their privilege can look at Amy Cooper and go "Oh yeah, I know that person, and yes, I understand how they are dangerous." Anyone who has ever accomplished anything positive has, most likely, passed by an Amy Cooper on the way and had them try to kick them a few rungs down the ladder. They themselves can't get very high up. I wasn't surprised to learn that while the actual Amy Cooper had a decent job and was probably able to keep other people from rising above her, she soon was outed as being an intensely chaotic person. Messy, some of you might say. Self-sabotaging.

And that makes sense, right?

Why would anybody pull something that repulsive knowing there was even an iota of a chance they were being filmed?

I would have to imagine it's because in addition to being addicted to attention, Amy Coopers have a tendency to be addicted to anger as well. And that combination is where the real danger comes in, because if you've ever fully given over to righteous anger (:: waves because my temper is woooo watch out ::) you know that in the moment at which your anger has been justified within your own mind, you are capable of doing just about anything. I have no doubt that if Amy Cooper had a gun on her at that moment, she would have shot that man and claimed self-defense later. And there wouldn't have been one moment for the rest of her life where she felt guilty or even doubted her actions, because that anger would still be there telling her that it was his fault for daring to challenge her. Despite perhaps knowing, logically, that he, as a Black man, is someone who lives in a state of danger, she would prioritize him being a man as an acceptable reason to call upon that danger in what she would perceive as self-preservation.

This isn't to say there aren't male versions of Amy Coopers, but we usually just call them sociopaths.