Acknowledging The Amy Cooper Within
Like Amy Cooper, I am a white, middle-aged liberal woman living in the United States. I share the power she holds as a white woman and the proximity she has to white men.
I am also a liberal who voted for Obama. I have a Black Lives Matter sign in my yard. I know exactly what to say, who to support, and how to act to be a "good" white person.
I'm not a dog owner, but I have a lot of white friends with dogs in Portland—friends who regularly let their dogs off-leash. In fact, I watched several white families with their untethered frolicking dogs at Kenton Park yesterday. These people smile at me at PTA meetings but asking a Portlander to put a dog on a leash will incite conflict.
I was born in NYC. I have walked alone through Central Park and other public places, keenly aware of strangers, scanning for potential threats. My phone is on hand, ready to dial 9-1-1 at the first sign of danger.
It has never occurred to me that a police officer might NOT believe me; I was taught they are here to protect me. The only fear I have ever experienced in the presence of a cop is wondering how bad my speeding ticket will be. Typically, a friendly, “Please slow down, Ms. Eberly,” is my only punishment.
I was raised on stories about the inherent danger of Black men. Growing up in Richmond, VA, I knew which neighborhoods those Black men lived in and was given explicit instructions never to go there. Some of the lies we learn are blatantly stated, others are more subtly implied. I’m confident Amy and I got a similar education on who can and cannot be trusted.
As a child, I toured Jamestown, plantations, and Mount Vernon every year on field trips. Sure, we knew there were slave quarters. Nobody flat-out denied the reality of Virginia’s foundation or the history of slavery. It’s what is too often left out—the omission—that reveals the lie. The full reality is that Robert E. Lee, a commander of the Confederate States Army, shared a holiday with Martin Luther King Jr. I lived off of Jefferson Davis highway and drove down Monument Avenue on Sunday afternoons. Glorified Confederate heroes, ham, and peanuts are Virginia staples; glorifying US history and founding fathers is a staple of our educational system.
The inconvenient truth is that I likely have more in common with Amy Cooper than not. Pointing fingers to separate myself from her or Karen does not make me an ally; it shows my ignorance. Ignorance, when combined with weaponized words and white skin has lethal consequences.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve never called the cops on birders or joggers or families having a BBQ in the park. What does matter? The unchecked racism of professional, white, liberal women. Until and unless we do the work, we remain dangerous leaders, employees, and consultants. To say that human resources and the coaching industry is riddled with Amy Coopers is an understatement.
My company, Radius, is grounded in the belief that self-awareness is required for great leadership. The same is true if you want to be an antiracist.
Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash.
Racism is fuckery.
I made an effort to own my fuckery in the video linked below, but there was a choice involved. I got to control that decision. I’m in charge of the narrative, another reminder of my power and my ability to decide when I do and don’t want to talk about race. (For anyone trying to figure out what privilege is, that’s one example.)
It is easy to shame Amy Cooper, for her racist actions, but I, too, know the heat of self-righteous anger. That sort of rage is intoxicating! And power - do you know the grip of power? Do you know the weight of words and the ability to use them to get what you want?
Let me ask you this: Have you ever, in a state of fight and fury, lashed out with words that harmed another?
Amy’s fuckery was caught on video. What if mine was recorded? Or yours?
I can hop on my soap box like the best of them. I can call out sexism and demand justice for all of us with a #metoo story. On that topic, I have taken great personal and professional risks. I have lost revenue. I have lost clients. I took on corporate giant Lam Research, repeatedly calling for actions to repair the institutional trauma and betrayal inflicted on dozens of past and present employees. I have demonstrated my “skin in the game.” I have fought that battle—and am still fighting. But…
I have not matched my public outrage about sexual violence with the same public outrage over Black violence.
Maybe I have been just another pink-pussy-hat-wearing white woman, unwilling to see that, dammit, my feminism is not as intersectional as it must be. I wonder, how different is Amy than me?
I have been too safe and too silent for too long.
I am complicit. I have fuckery to own.
Unfucking Our Privilege
As white women—and men—I believe it is incumbent upon all of us to examine our biases and our privilege as the first step to dismantling racism. As with everything I teach and do, we’ve got to Name It to Tame It. Toppling monuments and protesting police brutality are external signs. But there are other, less visible changes that are of critical importance.We must—those of us with white privilege—take a fearless moral inventory of our roots, our conditioning, and the subtle (or not so subtle) ways we keep racism alive, even if only through our silence and complacency. This is the work.
I invite you to join me in the following anti-racism exercise:
1. Watch this video
2. Say their names out loud with me.
3. Ask yourself these questions:
Where have I failed to take risks to talk about racism?
What does your ownership look like?
Where are you playing it too safe?
Keep asking. Change your behavior. Take action. Don’t stop.
#SayHerName: Breonna Taylor
Note: I am posting this article on June 5th, 2020—on what would have been Breonna Taylor’s twenty-seventh birthday. Breonna was a beloved and highly respected essential worker—an Emergency Medical Technician working at two separate hospitals in Louisville, Kentucky. She dedicated her life to helping others and she lost her life when local police broke into her apartment and rained bullets down on her. She was shot eight times. Her killers have still not been brought to justice.