Public Shaming in the Digital Age

Amy Cooper

In the past 24 hours, something strange has happened.  If you haven't been on social media (kudos-I need to ween myself off of it a bit in June), you may have missed the conversation about a woman named Amy Cooper.  Cooper is a white woman in her early 40's who lives in New York City and works for Franklin Templeton, an investment firm, or at least she did up until yesterday.  Cooper was caught on camera having an argument with Christian Cooper (no relation), a 57-year-old African-American writer and former Marvel Comics editor, who was bird-watching at the time.  Ms. Cooper, on camera, after Mr. Cooper asked her to put her dog on a leash, threatened to call the police and tell them that an African-American man was harassing her in Central Park, and she did so, again on camera.  All-the-while her dog appeared to be struggling for breath while she held it by the collar.

Mr. Cooper's sister Melody (also a writer, for The CW and HBO) posted the video on Twitter & it went viral.  Amy Cooper was quickly identified, and before she took down her social media profiles on LinkedIn and Instagram, people were tweeting her identity to her employer and to the shelter she had gotten her dog from.  Just 24 hours later, Amy Cooper's life is completely changed.  She has lost her job and her dog, and now for the rest of the existence of the internet, is going to have to deal with her name being synonymous with her racist decision to try and punish Christian Cooper for asking her to follow the law.

There are a lot of levels to this story.  It's worth noting that initially, a lot of (white) Twitter users were more responsive to the clearly in-pain dog in the video than to the obvious malice in Amy Cooper's decision to call the police for a man who was not harassing her or didn't pose any threat to her whatsoever.  That narrative quickly changed when it was correctly pointed out to these users that Amy Cooper did this because she knew the danger it posed to Christian Cooper.  On a day where one of the other tragic stories of the day was about George Floyd being held and essentially killed by a police officer who refused to take his knee off the neck of the African-American man, it's a reminder that law enforcement in the United States has consistently shown a bias toward black men that is not experienced by white people (there are hundreds of examples, the most prevalent being the recent all-white protests at the Michigan State Capitol where a bunch of white men were seen with guns standing around the Capitol-it's unthinkable to assume that a group of similarly-dressed black men could have behaved in such a way).

Amy Cooper knew this, despite her protestations today.  She knew that when she told Christian Cooper in the video that she would tell the cops that he was "African-American."  She knew it in the way she made it sound like she was in danger on the phone, rather than essentially acknowledging that she was filing a false report with the police (a crime, for the record).  Amy Cooper's behavior in that video, despite her protestations afterward, were inherently and completely racist.  She used her white privilege to attempt to punish a black man who simply pointed out that she was breaking the law and asking her to follow the law.  That's it.

It is unthinkable that Amy Cooper would've experienced this punishment were it not for social media, and the video that was posted about her.  Which brings me kind of to my point here-public shaming got Christian Cooper a justice that probably never would have been afforded to him without Twitter.  It's impossible to imagine Cooper even being identified from the video without social media, and her racist behavior would have continued.  But Ms. Cooper decided that her immoral behavior and reaction to being told she was breaking the law put Christian Cooper's life at risk.  Some people have stated that this public shaming has gone too far, but isn't this maybe the right end result?  Amy Cooper could have followed the law in the first place-her life would be fine.  She could have acknowledged that Christian Cooper was right, and put her dog on a leash.  She could have just left the situation & left the park with her dog, and it's possible that this wouldn't have gone viral.  But she instead decided to punish Christian Cooper, and put his life at risk.  Losing her job and dog feel like the correct result here.

Public shaming is going to be more common, and there has already been some backlash to it.  I personally am supportive of people publicly shaming those who exhibit poor behavior regarding Covid-19 by not wearing masks publicly, behaving irresponsibly & foolishly at protests, and even those people who post photos/videos of themselves at crowded parties or beaches without any consideration of the people who would die if they accidentally exposed themselves to this illness, but I know that it's a mixed bag for some people (perhaps because they need to justify their own actions...?).  But regardless, we are now in an era where cell phone cameras and social media posts are going to be fodder for even people that are not famous or not known; Amy Cooper was an ordinary person until she became the #1 trending topic in America.  There is potential for mob mentality to occasionally destroy the life of a person who didn't deserve it or doesn't have the resources to combat the destruction of their name.  But Amy Cooper showed that public shaming can also carry a significant benefit.  Today Amy Cooper suffered a consequence to her abhorrent, racist, criminal behavior.  She will have to pay the punishment of that behavior, that crime, not just from an economic standpoint but also from a societal one.  Society stood up and told her that her sort of behavior is unacceptable, and while it's sad that in 2020 we need to do that still, it should be of some hope that society banded together & their demands for justice were taken seriously.