In a world where individuals guilty of existing-while-black are murdered by law enforcement or by racists who own guns, I keep reading comments where people suggest my--our--friend Chris is guilty of being a jerk for OFFERING A DOG A TREAT.
I'm not saying he was trying to make friends with the dog. He was clearly offering the dog a treat so the dog owner would leash the dog which was illegally off-leash in a migratory bird habitat.
The number of commenters in the world who claim Chris had ill-intent toward the dog due to offering it a treat is small, but nevertheless horrifying and absurd.
Sometimes, I just want to give up, you know? People are just so...god, they're just so dense. I don't want to be that person, but sometimes it's hard to see the good, the smart, the reasonable in people. They want so badly to prove they are uniquely more clever, they are special, they see an angle no one else sees. "They're both jerks."
No, they're not. One of them is an entitled privileged person you'd avoid at a party, the kind of petulant, duplicitous, self-absorbed vice-president you end up working a few offices away from and hoping that one day she'll go somewhere else and get a job so you
don't have to listen to her BS in meetings. The kind of person who tells you about her traumatic time when she chipped a tooth and thinks it's the same thing as chronic illness, gender or race violence, or permanent loss.
The other is a wildlife-loving gay man of color who has learned how to manage difficult situations by carrying dog treats.
I know it's silly to even think about this. Half the commenters are bots anyway, just stirring the pot because that's how you destroy a superpower without even touching a tank or bomb. But when I see an actual REAL person suggest that a black man in America is an asshole for carrying dog treats, I see who is the asshole.
And so should we all.
"Christian Cooper is already back birding at Central Park. 'I’m not excusing the racism,' he said. 'But I don’t know if her life needed to be torn apart.'"
I'm not saying he was trying to make friends with the dog. He was clearly offering the dog a treat so the dog owner would leash the dog which was illegally off-leash in a migratory bird habitat.
The number of commenters in the world who claim Chris had ill-intent toward the dog due to offering it a treat is small, but nevertheless horrifying and absurd.
Sometimes, I just want to give up, you know? People are just so...god, they're just so dense. I don't want to be that person, but sometimes it's hard to see the good, the smart, the reasonable in people. They want so badly to prove they are uniquely more clever, they are special, they see an angle no one else sees. "They're both jerks."
No, they're not. One of them is an entitled privileged person you'd avoid at a party, the kind of petulant, duplicitous, self-absorbed vice-president you end up working a few offices away from and hoping that one day she'll go somewhere else and get a job so you
 |
| NYTimes |
The other is a wildlife-loving gay man of color who has learned how to manage difficult situations by carrying dog treats.
I know it's silly to even think about this. Half the commenters are bots anyway, just stirring the pot because that's how you destroy a superpower without even touching a tank or bomb. But when I see an actual REAL person suggest that a black man in America is an asshole for carrying dog treats, I see who is the asshole.
And so should we all.
"Christian Cooper is already back birding at Central Park. 'I’m not excusing the racism,' he said. 'But I don’t know if her life needed to be torn apart.'"
1 comment:
He must have a generous spirit.
Post a Comment