The Central Park Jogger to the Central Park Birdwatcher
Written 05/28/2020
This past week, as the video of Amy Cooper circled the internet, there was pervasive and well-deserved outrage in response to her actions towards a harmless birdwatcher, Christian Cooper, in Central Park. The same day, George Floyd’s merciless death in Minneapolis brought forth an uncomfortable yet obvious truth — Christian Cooper could have suffered a similar fate to Floyd. Amy Cooper threatened, “I’m gonna tell [the cops] there’s an African American man threatening my life.” It was not just the location of the incident but also the intentionality of her racism that was deeply reminiscent of the Central Park Jogger case of 1989, over two decades ago.
In 1989, a 28-year old woman was jogging at the northern tip of Central Park where she was physically assaulted and brutally raped. Her injuries were so severe that she had no recollection of the attack. I often think about her as I run by that very location, and by Metropolitan Hospital where she was brought hours later. Five teenagers, young men of color from Harlem, were taken into police custody, questioned and coerced to make false confessions without a guardian present, and subsequently spent years in prison. With the 2019 Netflix miniseries, “When They See Us”, this story resurfaced and received necessary popular attention across the world for how the justice system failed the “Central Park Five”, now often referred to as the “Exonerated Five”. In it, writer and director Ava DuVernay does an excellent job showcasing the mental gymnastics of the prosecutors. In one scene, Linda Fairstein, head of the sex crimes unit at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office from 1976 to 2002, is seen convincing a skeptical colleague of the importance of indicting these five teenagers despite insufficient supporting evidence. She cites its significance in achieving justice for Trisha Meili, the jogger, and its larger symbolism for women and sexual assault survivors. Fairstein wielded her “feminism” to justify her inherent racism. This was not a choice she had to make.
While Americans stand politically divided in 2020, echo chambers fuel stereotypes of liberals, moderates, and conservatives. Assumptions based on region, political party, religion, race, and education are constantly made. As the video of Amy Cooper was widely shared, immediate assumptions of her being a “MAGA” Trump-supporter were made. Apparently, however, she identifies as a liberal in one of the most seemingly liberal cities in the country, and emphasized in her apology, rather meekly, that she is not a racist. Even in the video itself, she attempted to be “politically correct” in her racism by referring to Christian Cooper as an “African American”; no racial slurs or derogatory language were used. In the northeast, midwestern or southern cases of police brutality and racist community violence are often dismissed as a distant and intangible regional problem, largely because certain identities are conflated with specific opinions and actions.
Many liberals, in fact, used Christian Cooper’s success as a Harvard graduate and current biomedical editor to emphasize how wrong Amy Cooper was in her reaction. This very rationale is a strong example of the inherent racism of seemingly non-racist individuals. If a White man deserves to live and be shielded from violence and profiling regardless of education or occupation, why does a Black man need accolades to deserve equal humanity? For many, a Black man must prove the worth of his life.
May the prosecutors’ reactions to the Exonerated Five in 1989 and Amy Cooper’s response to Christian Cooper in 2020 be testaments to the fact that feminists can be racists, liberals can exploit police brutality, and a mere “anti-racist” self-identification does not preclude you from displaying white supremacy or racist biases. Those who have a deep enough understanding of how racist the justice system in this country can be to willingly weaponize it against men of color cannot later defend their actions under the guise of self-proclaimed and often meaningless identities.
