In our social media age, the figure of the "entitled White woman" who calls the police on people of color, especially Black people, simply for living their lives has become so common that she has become a meme. In a week also marked by the 100,000th official COVID-19 death in the United States and the death of a Black man, George Floyd, at the hands (and knee) of a White Minneapolis police officer, Amy Cooper took her place in that long, infamous line of White women. We believe that relatively few people would have behaved as Amy Cooper did that morning in her Central Park encounter with Christian Cooper (no relation) on the morning of May 25th. But it is self-serving for the rest of us to believe that we have nothing in common with her. The truth is that the attitudes and impulses made manifest in her behavior are pervasive, and she wasn't born with them; she learned them. Andrew and Melissa of EmbraceRace.org talk to Jennifer Harvey about what the parents of White children, in particular, can do to ensure they're not raising white children who are quick to call the police on Black and Indigenous people and people of color.
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