[pitterpatter]

Sure, and she said "I’m calling the cops … I’m gonna tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life." So literally weaponizing racism. I ain't saying the guy is a saint here but clearly the fact that that's the threat she would make kinda says something about our society here.

[oh_sigh]

Yes, I agree the woman was out of line. But her behavior may be explained as her just describing the man in a manner she's seen on TV shows(the perp is 6', stocky, wearing flannel), because she also said something along the lines of "I'm going to tell them it is a black man in a dark shirt and a baseball cap" or something like that. Keep in mind this lady was a vocal supporter of BLM before this incident happened. And the man had already said, basically, "Put your dog on the leash or I'm going to do something you aren't going to like", which really does sound like a threat.

It's possible she decided on the spot to weaponize the mans race against him, or it's also possible she was scared out of her mind that this stranger was accosting her for a minor thing she does all the time (or, she's just off her rocker).

Anyways, my point wasn't about the lady's behavior which was clearly wrong regardless of her reasons, it was more about how the guy in that situation created a situation and then publicized it. I can't really feel sorry for the burdens put upon him, since he went out of his way to make what happened a news story, instead of, again, just chalking it up to crazy people behaving crazy (or racist, which is just another flavor of crazy). Like I've said, I've been stereotyped in NYC because of both my race and gender, but I didn't go out of my way to make a news story about it. I didn't even let it affect my day. Everyone has choices about where they spend their mental energy. Getting into a scuffle in central park because someone has their calm dog off leash near them is not where I would choose to spend mine.

[pitterpatter]

>It's possible she decided on the spot to weaponize the mans race against him

I mean, that's the point I'm trying to make. The fact that she could weaponize his race is a problem to being with.

>Keep in mind this lady was a vocal supporter of BLM before this incident happened.

And mind you, I don't actually think she's some kind of virulent or bad person. It's more about recognizing some of the injustices we unfortunately live with.

> But her behavior may be explained as her just describing the man in a manner she's seen on TV shows

And you know, you're right she could be. But that just speaks to how pervasive a lot of these kinds of structures are.

[oh_sigh]

But...did she weaponize his race? She called the cops and described him. The cops showed up. Both people had already left at that point. It didn't seem that Cooper was in much fear of his race being weaponized against him. It did become a talking point after the fact though.

> But that just speaks to how pervasive a lot of these kinds of structures are.

Cop dramas are popular even in largely monoracial societies that have high respect for their police, and the same tropes exist there(regarding describing suspects in certain terminology).

[Jochim]

> But...did she weaponize his race? She called the cops and described him.

Would she have told a white man that she was going to "call the cops and tell them a white man was threatening her"?. The prevailing opinion of the situation seems to be that she wouldn't have. IIRC this was also steeped in the context of a number of other videos where people had been explicitly mentioning a black person's race for "help" in contrived/unthreatening situations that they had often started.

[oh_sigh]

But that's not what she said - or rather not the whole quote. An equivalent would be like "a white man in a red t shirt and jeans", which sounds much more like a description than a weaponization of someone's race.

The context this video was steeped in has nothing to do with whether this lady decided to weaponize his race or not. They were completely unrelated events, with unrelated people, that we're not even sure the lady knew about.