I had a long conversation with a WW friend yesterday about Amy Cooper and the ways that we as WW are taught to be complicit in upholding white supremacy. None of this is new or original, but here's what stuck with me that might me helpful for other WW having these conversations.

First, there's this sticking point for some people about whether or not she really thought she was above the rules (and about whether dog leash rules are that serious anyway, which they are).

This is a bad faith argument.

There are a lot of laws that don't apply to privileged white folks.

Examples include jay walking & open container laws & publicly smoking MJ. My entire life I've been told that if I do those things the worst I can expect is a slap on the wrist (if that!).

It's not about whether Amy Cooper personally thought it was ok/not ok to have her dog off leash. It's about how many WW are raised to believe that these laws are created to keep Other People in line.

And you don't have to be consciously aware of that dynamic to try & uphold it.

Okay and then next is this conversation about whether she was actually scared or triggered or what have you.

And in the grand scheme of things: racism is not a disability. Full stop.

But as WW, we really need to talk about how our very real fear of gendered violence is weaponized by white supremacy.

Like you've heard the quote that men are afraid women will laugh at them and women are afraid men will kill them, right?

And maybe you place your keys between your fingers when you walk home at night. Maybe you live with your own trauma from growing up inside rape culture.

I know I do.

So maybe you saw yourself in Amy Cooper for just a minute, because you've been alone in a public place in broad daylight & you felt a brief flash of absolute terror when you realized there was a man, any man, in that space with you.

In & of itself, that terror is not your fault.

But let's take a few steps back.

Is it true that all men are most afraid that women will laugh at them?

No. Absolutely not.

Black men have been telling us, over and over again, that they're afraid WW will appeal to authority and have them killed.

You don't need to spend very much time online to find Black men describing all of the different ways that they go out of their way to appear non-threatening.

And it's not because they're scared of being laughed at.

So back to that moment of terror.

When WW face violence at the hands of white cis men, we're told to keep quiet to protect those men. We're torn apart if we don't keep quiet. I'm going to assume you know exactly what I'm talking about.

But when WW imagine/fabricate a threat of violence from a Black man, the dynamics are different. White men rush to defend & protect us.

But it's not really about us. It's about that thing I was talking about earlier, about how our laws were created to keep Other People in line.

And this matters. It matters so much.

The police don't exist to protect WW from gendered violence. They don't care about dismantling rape culture.

They only want to make us feel safe when we are upholding white supremacy, and the cost for that mirage of safety is inexcusable.