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Discussion, examination of racism’s prevalence needed, CSUSB professor says
The Washington Post
May 27, 2020
A close, if uncomfortable, examination of racism’s prevalence might be more fruitful, said Brian Levin, a criminologist who directs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, in an article about a confrontation between a black man watching birds and a white woman walking her dog in New York City’s Central Park.
As she confronted the birdwatcher who asked her to leash her dog in Central Park, Amy Cooper never hurled racist slurs. She didn’t assault the black man, Christian Cooper, who was filming the interaction. She didn’t assault his property.
The damage that Cooper, a white investment banker, threatened was implied: that the police would not respond in his favor because of his race. “I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” she says on the video as she dials 911.
The incident, recorded on video and shared on social media, sparked outrage.
“Amy Cooper won’t do this again. But the next Amy Cooper is going to be influenced by the same influences, and the same impulses,” he said. “We need to have conversations . . . Most people who commit hate crimes are not hardcore skinheads and Klan people. And I think what it shows is that when people are under stress, this latent racism will become operational.”
Read the complete article at “Public outrage, legislation follow calls to police about black people.”
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