To the Amy Coopers and "Karen's" of the world, your time is up!

“I’m not a racist. I did not mean to harm that man in any way.”- “I think I was just scared.” These are the words Amy Racist Cooper had the nerve to utter to CNN after the racist video of her threatening a Black man went viral.

She also went on to say “I didn’t mean any harm” and I want to explore these five words a little more closely.

Is she saying she didn’t mean no harm when she walked up this man’s face and taunted him by saying “I’m going to tell the cops that an African American man is threatening my life” (who’s pulling the race card here?).

Or is she saying she didn’t mean any harm when she pretended something sinister was happening to her by intentionally raising her voice, acting hysterical and shrieking like she was being attacked?

Please let us not forget the infamous park in which this incident took place. Central Park. The Central Park where five young Black boys were falsely accused of brutally raping a jogger and leaving her for dead in 1990. They received an unfair, biased trial and were each sent down in 1990 for something they had no part of.

Systematic racism is the injustice those young boys faced and it’s that same system Amy Cooper was counting on when she called the police on Christian Cooper (no relation, thank God).

She knows the system and she knows how to play it like a fiddle like all the Amy Cooper's and two-bit Karen’s do.

Let us also not forget that it was the lies and cries of a White woman in 1955 Money, Mississippi that led to the brutal murder of Emmett Till. Maybe Emmett would still be alive today if they had recording devices back then, who knows?!

How about all the Black people who have died at the hands of police for doing far less than standing near a white woman with a recording device. People who whilst minding their business have been victims of police brutality, racial profiling and then straight-up murder. Just in the last few days, George Floyd has tragically lost his life to police brutality.

With these examples, Amy Cooper knew exactly what she was doing by weaponising her race against that of someone who was born into systematic oppression. When her voice kicked in the hysterics I just wanted to vomit and it made me very scared for many Black people in America and even in the UK.

The fake cries of many White women are no match for the real cries of Black women having to bury their sons, husbands, brothers and uncles because of these heinous stunts that the Amy Cooper’s of the world pull!

She knew by acting hysterically and lying through her teeth, that an African American man was threatening her, something sinister was likely to happen to him. She wanted to use her race to inflict potential pain or indeed death on someone who only asked her to play by the rules of the park. She knew playing the White woman victim would inevitably lead to state-sanctioned violence.

People of the world, THIS is white supremacy. This is evil in its purest form.

To the Amy Cooper apologists saying we don’t know what he said to her that made her act this way. Christian Cooper admits moments before he pressed “record” and after asking her politely to put a leash on her dog and she started getting all riled up to which he said, “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” and then took out his phone.

This is what scared her into acting like Carolyn Bryant (Emmett Till's accuser). She was so scared she kept on going up to him and getting in his face? She was so scared that she was being the aggressor? She was so scared she used his race against him? Nope, try again.

Instead of acting like a rational person, Amy Cooper made a clear choice to deliberately put a Black man in harm’s way because she didn’t like what he said to her.

Please do not say she’s human and she made a mistake. This was not an error in her judgement. She chose racism and wanted to remind this man who was in charge. SHE CHOSE TO BE RACIST!

“I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life” highlights a truth about race that most of us already knew - White people are far more aware of the structure of systematic racism than they care to admit. They don't want to admit it because it proves the privilege that people of colour have been singing about for decades.

As someone in HR and recruitment who talks a lot about unconscious bias. Let me be perfectly clear in saying that there’s absolutely nothing “unconscious” about the bias she so blatantly displays. As a White woman in this unfair world, there are so many levels of privilege afforded to her that she already knows she’s in a good position to lie. She can play the system to her advantage knowing that the likelihood of the law believing a Black man over her was slim to none.

It’s that superior mindset that whatever happens, the system was built to protect people like her.

Her employers Franklin Templeton acted quickly and correctly, but then again they HAD to as the world is watching them. As someone who works in HR, I know what she did was gross misconduct and she has publicly embarrassed the company. However, you only have to look at what their employees anonymously say about working there to know they don't advocate diversity in the workplace.

Unfortunately, the reality is that many companies have not one but multiple Amy Coopers. They’re your CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, CTOs, COOs, MDs, Leadership Team, Heads of Departments and other titles of power.

They’re everywhere and we need to flush them out by any means necessary.

Their racism, bigotry and sheer cruelness will surface sooner or later and we need companies to act as mercilessly as they do.

Amy Cooper’s disgusting display of racism isn’t an isolated incident. I will say again, THERE ARE AMY COOPER’S EVERYWHERE IN THE WORKPLACE as this is not a U.S problem, it's an everywhere problem.

She was a VP at Franklin Templeton which meant she has an enormous amount of power at her fingertips.

How many people of colour did she overlook for employment because she could? How many people of colour did she pass up for promotion because she could? How many people of colour did she write negative performance reviews for because she could? How many people of colour has she passed up for salary reviews because she could? How many people of colour has she lied upon because she could?

The number of times I’ve heard people in power say “I don’t see colour” whilst getting my name mixed up with the only other black person in the room, even though my name is Abi and her name is Diane. All whilst there are Catherine’s, Katarina’s, Cassandra’s, Christine's, Katie’s and Cathy’s sitting around the table and whose names and identities are never once mistaken. One has to laugh!

When racists and bigots show their true self, please believe them. Instead, you have the gall to ask us to "give you examples"! Then when we do, you say it’s “all in our heads”! You say “her nephew is mixed”! You say "her neighbour 18 doors down from her is black".

*Sigh*

You pull out all of the defences for such deplorable people but you have no defence for those who feel her wrath just because they were born with a different skin tone to her. Don’t ask us, people of colour, to prove someone's prejudice. It's YOU who have to do better as employers!

I personally have worked with so many Amy Cooper's who have a hate of Black people and nothing is done to protect people like me.

It’s like someone said to me, “you go from office pet to office threat and then everything starts going wrong”. These workplace Amy Cooper’s don't want to see a person of colour succeeding, so they try and weigh us down with their microaggressions and reminding us that they have the power.

I’ve worked 10x harder than my many of my White counterparts to barely any progression or recognition from my employers and I have a fear of speaking out because I don’t want them thinking they have a Black woman who’s a troublemaker. So more often than not, I keep quiet so that I'm not labelled "aggressive" or "scary".

Imagine being called these awful and insulting words because I'm trying to be heard, respected and valued. They're loaded terms that cause so much damage to our confidence, wellbeing and mental health.

So many Black people and other minorities are fighting back against being oppressed in the workplace and we don’t have the luxury of video evidence to show people what’s really going on.

The Amy Cooper’s of the workforce is being protected because even though you know they're racist and you know they’re using their White privilege to keep oppressing Black people (especially Black women), you choose to turn a blind eye.

We’re fed up and we’re speaking up and out now.

Sitting on the wall of “I’m White so I might be right” must make the Amy Cooper’s and “Karen’s” of this world feel very tall. Well, the Abi Adamson’s of this world are coming through with our voices, knowledge and tenacity.

We are going to wear you down. We are going to knock all you racist and xenophobic bigots off your privilege wall and we’re going to make sure you are held accountable for every kind of racist injustice you try and force on us.

We will have all the camera’s in your racist faces and we will let your employers know what kind of person they have on their payroll.

We’ve had enough and the time for change has come.

Abi Adamson 🤨