Christian Cooper

Christian Cooper (born 1963) is an American science writer and editor, and also a comics writer and editor. He is the first openly gay male writing for Marvel Comics. On May 25, 2020, Cooper was involved in the Central Park birdwatching incident, which led to the creation of Black Birders Week. The incident is also the basis for his online comic book about racism, illustrated by Alitha Martinez and published by DC Comics, called "It's a Bird".

Quotes

• Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it.
  • 25 May 2020 speaking to Amy Cooper, per his facebook post, cited by NY post

• I’m eager for a president who’ll nurture his capacity for growth in our nation itself. That’s why I support Joe Biden.
  • 19 June 2020 CNN statenement

• I'm not excusing the racism
  • 9 September 2020 interview here

About

• As a black man, I am not scared of another person because their race or ethnicity, but this man IS threatening with his body language and screaming.
  I don’t know Amy Cooper at all, I’ve said hello to her because that’s what dog owners do to other owners in the park, but when I saw that video, I thought, I cannot imagine if he approached her the same way how she may have genuinely been afraid for her life.
  people need to understand this man is a dick and probably did threaten her.
  You can read his Facebook post where he tells the world he told her “you’re not gonna like what I’m going to do next.” That’s a threat.
  And she has no idea if this man is pulling out a knife, a gun, or a treat that (sic) laced with a rat poison.
  If I wasn’t who I was, I would of called the police on that guy too.
  Sure, we’re breaking the rules by having our dogs off leash in a park that has 80% of its area off-leash hours, but that gives that guy no authority to accost people in such manner.
  My two fellow dog owners have had similar situations with this man, but don’t feel comfortable coming forward because they’re white.
  • Jerome Lockett 26 May 2020 full statement PDF

• Christian Cooper’s encounter in Central Park was another wake-up call for our nation and a reminder of the work that remains to root out hate and intolerance. I'm grateful for Christian's support and know with folks like him leading the way, we'll get the job done.
  • Joe Biden 20 June 2020 tweet

• But as his poise in the infamous video reveals, Cooper is well-suited to this teachable moment for America. As a gay black birder, and as someone who has helped comic books become more inclusive, he knows the cultural forces that try to reduce him to something he’s not — and has the will and the confidence to defy them.
  • David Betancourt on 23 June 2020 in WashPo article

• Suddenly I heard this loud booming voice behind me, y'know, screaming something to the effect of, y'know, "GET OUT OF HERE! YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE!" or something like that.
  Whenever you hear something loud you naturally just startle a little bit, and I turned around and immediately saw, y'know, this man standing there, looking, y'know, like he's VERY annoyed that I'm in there invading the space.
  And then he uttered something that, y'know, sounds to me like a threat.
  That's he's going to do something to me I'm not gonna like, and I'm like woah-woah-woah and I'm trying to figure out what does that mean?
  Is it a physical attack on me? Is that to my dog? What is he about to do
  Before I could even figure it out and process this, he has this giant... I don't know if it was as fannypack-slash-knapsack that's on his front and he pulls out dog treats.
  I'm like -what the heck is this guy doing?- and I look up and y'know he's holding these dog treats in one hand and a BIKE helmet in his other hand, and I'm thinking -oh my gosh, is this guy like, going to like, lure my dog over and try to like, hit him with his bike helmet?-
  And if my dog gets over there am I gonna get hit by this bike helmet if I end up over there?
  • 3 August 2021 interview by Amy Cooper paraphrasing what Christian said to her in The Real Story of The Central Park Karen (17m/82m)

• He threatened her, I thought, stunned. He says himself that he approached her — a woman alone in a wooded area. He tried to lure away her dog. How was this the first time I was reading these details? Had I just missed them in the other stories I’d read? I started looking at the Cooper coverage more critically. A Washington Post article summarized the conflict this way: Christian Cooper “approached the dog’s owner early on Monday with a request: Could she leash up the canine, as the park rules required? Amy Cooper said she would be calling the police instead.” The implication of this and most other accounts was that Amy Cooper called the police simply because he’d asked her to leash her dog. And even though the article included a link to Christian’s Facebook post, the text of the article failed to mention the threat at all. Why had the Post left it out?
  • 3 August 2021 by Megan Phelps-Roper on substack article