Responding to a story in The New York Times last week:
“White Woman Is Fired After Calling Police on Black Man in Central Park: Video of the incident touched off intense discussions about the history of black people being falsely reported to the police.”
by Sarah Maslin Nir
The New York Times
May 26, 2020
I wrote the following comment, which was posted by the Times:
This is a very sad outcome. Ms. Cooper should NOT have been fired. Franklin Templeton fired her not because they CARE — it’s a public relations (read, bottom line) issue for them.
I am not a racist; I am the opposite. I think that the story should be told and understood as an example of what blacks undergo when it comes to their “offenses” being reported to the police. Recent examples of black “suspects” being shot and innocent blacks being harassed for being in places where someone decided they should not be horrify me.
Ms. Cooper did not handle the situation well. But this was, as the police noted, basically an argument. (Yes, she did call the police.) I am usually considered polite and un-offensive, yet I have gotten into stupid arguments many times with people in New York … it kind of goes with the territory. Often, it seemed to me that the other person was being overly intrusive or controlling, or taking offense such as when the subway lurched a while ago and I stepped on a woman’s foot, said I am sorry, and she hit me in the back.
Ms. Cooper lost her cool and did not handle the situation well. Mr. Cooper was in the right as far as the leash law is concerned. Ms. Cooper has apologized. That should be sufficient. The punishment does not fit the crime. People in their rush to judgment and to take offense have lost all sense of perspective. She should be enabled to learn from the situation. It appears that she could do so.
Seven people clicked Recommend (Like).
A reader from San Diego commented: “She lost more than her cool. She accused him of threatening her life. Your response screams entitled white privilege.”
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I will leave it there. Anything else I might write here will subject me to angry and probably snide comments and accusations of being a racist.
But I recommend reading my prior post:
Thoughts Concerning “Repression of Discourse”
— posted by Roger W. Smith
May 31, 2020
It should be noted that Mr. Cooper (no relation) said that she should NOT have been fired.
Thanks for this comment, Carl. I feel the same way. I think firing is called for when an employee violates a company’s policies on diversity as an employee — say, for example, that the employee makes a hostile comment in the workplace or perhaps emails a racially insensitive joke to colleagues (presumably using her company email). This of course was not the case here. Franklin Templeton overreacted. It’s all PR — a case of this — on the company’s part.