World Actuality

Sometimes such unpleasant episodes happen that there seems to be no end to intolerance, selfishness and bad habits in some people. We could not think otherwise after reading what happened in New York, in well-known Central Park.

 A very normal request made by an African American man has turned, for a white woman, into the occasion to put into practice racist behavior which was, to say the least, excessive. The man was simply asking her to respect the rules, but at that moment, for the lady, this was overlooked, overwhelmed as it was by her prejudices. An attitude that ultimately cost her very dearly.

Christian Cooper is an African American man passionate about bird watching. As he often does, he was cultivating his hobby in the beautiful natural setting of Central Park when he met Amy Cooper, with whom, despite the identical surname, he has no kinship relationship.

The woman was with a dog which was running around off the leash, despite the fact that in that area of the park it is expressly requested to keep animals on a leash, as indicated by many signs. Before Christian started shooting the viral video, he politely asked the woman to put a leash on her dog, in accordance with the rules. Amy, however, roundly refused, and became angry. At that point, the man recorded what was happening with his cell phone, continuing to ask the lady to leash her dog. Christian even gave the woman's dog a treat, but she continued to react indignantly and resentfully, yanking on the poor dog, accusing the man of threats and saying she would call the police.

She did so, and the scene was filmed in the video shot by the African American man. "An African American man is recording me and threatening me and my dog, come right away!" With these words, Amy Cooper turned to the police officers, almost crying and shamefully pretending that Christian was attacking her, even if - as visible from the video - the man was at a safe distance. The officers arrived shortly after, but found neither of the two.

It is really sad and unpleasant to witness such behavior. Nowadays, after years of raising awareness about equality and rights, there are still those who judge and behave aggressively simply because they are faced with a person of a different color from themselves. The episode, made public, cost the woman dearly, as the bank she works for, after watching the video, decided to fire her, stating that "no type of racism is tolerated". An exemplary decision, which we hope will make the woman and many other people reflect on the need to change certain attitudes.
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