By Gregory McKnight
Photo Credit: Paige Stevens
I've heard many friends say offhandedly in the past few weeks that they're tired of living during a historical event. It seems that I and my peers that were born in the mid to late 90s have witnessed events such as September 11th, the 2008 financial crisis, the rise of the first Black president, and the backlash of that being Trump's presidency, and now COVID-19. The past few months during quarantine have not been easy for anyone and whenever I ask or respond to the question, "How are you?" there's this tension in the air of knowing, "Well I'm good considering blank going on." Our notion of what's good has changed as we've all tried to adapt to these concepts of social distancing, sheltering in place, and wearing a mask whenever we leave the house. With all these new changes, one insidious part of American life seems to have stuck, racism. The months of April and May have shown something that many Black Americans have seen far too often and at this point is traumatic whenever these videos go viral again. I'm referring to the videos and headlines of Black people dying after interactions with police officers. And this is just a fact, it's not an opinion on do they or don't they get killed and receive a long media coverage afterward, where audiences go back and forth and whether the death was or wasn't justified.
The name Rodney King may or not be familiar with someone from my generation or younger, but Rodney King's beating on camera, at the time, appeared to maybe be a glimmer of hope. Maybe if the American public could see police brutality and racism on camera, they would listen, they would understand. But Rodney King is just one name on the long list of people who have suffered violence or been slain by police and had their stories publicized. Without going to Google, I can name and remember those nights I saw on the news, the reports of Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, and now most recently Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
I found the situation of watching Amy Cooper make a false 9-1-1 call a mix of frustrating, frightening, sad, and scary. This person decided to use her power, her whiteness in this moment to intimidate Christian Cooper. What brings about those feelings of sadness and anger within me is knowing that I am that man. What's important to note, is that after this incident there was a narrative of sympathy that because Christian Cooper was a Harvard graduate and has a successful career as a comic book writer for Marvel. While those are two fine things to celebrate, Black people shouldn't have to be exceptional to feel safe. Whenever I see a Black person be killed or nearly killed in the news, I always see myself, my brother, my father, and so on. Yet, as these incidents happen time and time again it feels as if we are never heard. Our voices are constantly swept under the rug. Our voices are constantly put on mute, so we don't make people uncomfortable. Sometimes I think how my brain has been changed over the last few years as I digest these images and headlines of Black people being killed and the response is basically, time to move on.
I want America to do better. I want people in the outdoors to not see Black people as threats. I want people who care about the planet, the air they breathe, the water they drink to care about Black lives too because if they don't, I just see chaos continuing that I cannot accept. I remember seeing a similar video in 2015 when some police officers in Texas were called to break up a pool party that featured predominately Black teenagers. Rose Hackman from The Guardian described the situation like this, "For some black middle-class families in America, the video to surface out of McKinney, Texas, over the weekend was confirmation of something they have long been aware of: that regardless of income and postal address, as black bodies moving around in white-claimed spaces, they are constantly at risk of being seen as dangerous intruders, and that that perception may put them in danger." This danger that Hackman describes is the eerie feeling that I felt when watching the video with Christian Cooper. I am thankful not to have any situations escalate too intensely but I still want my friends who enjoy outdoor recreation not to view Black people as intruders, especially when so many of these areas where we gather for recreation are public places.
However, there is a hopeful ending to this story. Good Morning America did a follow-up story on Christian Cooper showing him still bird watching in Central Park after the incident. Seeing the incident inspired me to get into bird watching as well. I did some research and found Fort Washington Park to be a nice place for a beginner bird watcher like me to get started. Fort Washington is along with the Potomac River in Prince George's County and eBird.org states that the area has over 180 species of birds.