On Bari Weiss’s podcast, Kmele Foster from the Fifth Column podcast has an interview (and some very interesting background) on the Amy Cooper/Christian Cooper Central Park kerfuffle from last year.

I wrote about this incident last year and stand by my opinion expressed then, which was:

I do not approve of the way either party handled this incident.

I’m only about a half hour into Foster’s interview (very, very busy at work!), but I have already learned some things that back up my opinion at the time that the outrage storm against Amy Cooper was completely overblown — as well as other details that I just didn’t happen to know at the time. For example, I learned that dog walkers can walk their dogs unleashed in parts of Central Park at certain times — just not in the area where the incident happened. There’s detailed information about Christian Cooper’s previous encounters with other dog walkers, including one involving a black male dog walker who felt threatened enough by Christian Cooper that he pushed Cooper to the ground. There is good information on what Christian Cooper was really doing with those dog treats (basically a birder trick to coerce the dog owners into leashing up). While my overall conclusion is unlikely to change, I’m gaining a fuller understanding of who these people are and what led up to their encounter. I may write about it when I have finished the podcast. Then again (very, very busy work!) I may not. Either way, you should give it a listen.