Read on Twitter
We don’t have to charge Amy Cooper, and we shouldn’t charge Amy Cooper
Charging her is the easy solution. It’s the easy way out. And it reinforces the idea that justice can only be found in the disastrous carceral system we’ve created.
It's very hard to sit with the idea that someone like amy cooper shouldn't be charged because we are constantly constantly convinced that this is the system through which justice is done. but I urge you to sit with it.
ask yourself what criminal charges can do to amy cooper that hasn't already been done. has she not faced consequences? she did something absolutely horrible and she lost her job, her dog, her personal business was on the front page of the paper, we all know her face & her story
this is not unreasonable! as a white woman she tried to weaponize the system against a black man the best way she knows how. but the question for you is: why do you think she has to be indicted, or arrested, or serve time to REALLY face consequences? what are consequences to you?
sit with it, my loves. sit with it. I know it doesn't feel good. I know it doesn't feel like justice. but our most inherent feelings about "what feels like justice" have been shaped, molded, corrupted by a criminal justice system we still have a lot of trouble shaking.
amy cooper did something horrible, I believe she is a racist, and I believe she should face consequences for what she did. I do not believe those consequences should be criminal charges, because I do not think this system has the legitimacy or value to address her wrongdoing.
the real test of our commitment to dismantling the criminal justice system comes when we have to decide what we should do with people we don't like. people we find irredeemable. people we find disgusting. these, right here, are the hard questions.
We all believe that the racist NYPD would have potentially killed Christian Cooper had they shown up in time. And yet we still look to them for justice. I don’t trust that system. Ever. Why do we believe this racist, violent system can be the solution to racism and violence?
gonna mute because I have to go back to my day/night job of trying to hold the criminal legal system accountable BUT may I posit that if your bio says ACAB or abolish police and you're in my mentions saying i'm crazy and wrong that there may be some reckoning to do here?
also, if you think I only started caring because white people, you can a) look me up and b) read this op-ed I wrote on jussie smollett's case last year https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-jussie-smollett-commands-our-outrage
another piece I love on this topic - @elisabeth wrote this for @theappeal a while back https://theappeal.org/amber-guyger-botham-jean/
