Let’s Talk About the Amy Coopers Of the Workplace.
My physical safety may not have been in danger, but as a young black woman, my livelihood and well-being were at the mercy of an Amy Cooper boss.
The unfortunate Central Park incident was an eerie echo of numerous times when white people have called the cops on African-American boys and girls, men and women, for doing the most mundane things—like waiting to meet someone at Starbucks or selling water or grilling on a sidewalk.
It was clear Amy Cooper knew that her false report could have put Christian Cooper’s life at risk. Her act felt like a poorly rehearsed charade, but luckily, he was gone when the police arrived at the scene, so he made it out alive—though presumably shaken. I don’t claim that my work experiences were as dangerous as his encounter, but I too have been made to feel like my blackness was a threat.
Two former bosses (we’ll name them Karen and Susan) at the same company once told me and another female colleague that our friendship made them uncomfortable. As the only two black women at the company, we naturally gravitated towards each other—something other team members who had things in common did, too. Yet, it was only an issue when she and I hung out. “Whenever I see you two together, I can just feel the negative energy from a distance. And it’s affecting the team dynamic as a whole.” Karen said in a disapproving tone. Had I missed the section in the employee handbook that prescribed who we could associate with?
So while we also had in common the fact that our managers treated us poorly, what brought us closer was our shared passion for living in New York, interest in blogging, and our love of happy hours. We did not dwell on our frustrations at work.
Karen used to publicly downplay the importance of my job. During a meeting with the marketing team where I presented a new strategy I’d worked hard to develop, sharing the growing engagement we were seeing on our platforms and suggesting ways we could reach an even larger audience, she admitted that my ideas were good yet shut down most of them, saying the company didn’t have the time or bandwidth to execute them. I assured her I was capable of taking them on myself with minimal involvement of other team members: “I just need your green light and budget support to see them through,” I responded. She passed on my offer.
Meanwhile, Susan routinely nitpicked about my use of the English language, like when I abbreviated words in report drafts or replied to non-urgent emails after an hour because I was taking care of another priority. She also blamed me for events beyond my control, like when a client decided on a whim to scratch an idea we’d spent time developing, saying I’d failed to anticipate their needs. “Your job, if that wasn’t clear, is also to troubleshoot,” she’d lecture me.
Our differences in communication and work styles were met with harsh criticism, impatience and hostility, while I watched a white coworker’s serious transgression (making typos in external emails) be treated with a slap on the wrist.
During performance reviews, these instances would be brought up as “things to work on”. Karen and Susan’s biases manifested in real ways: I was consistently denied the support and resources needed to grow in my role and my friend never received a promotion, even though she had an ever-growing workload and clients wrote emails praising her work. Instead, her new title and raise went to Kat, a newer white employee. We’d both hit the glass ceiling. Like Christian Cooper, who stood by as Amy Cooper called the cops, I felt powerless, fighting a war I had already lost.
No one addressed the commonplace micro-aggressions and we had no racial bias training that could have brought them to light. As time went on, it became painfully obvious to me, if not everyone else in the office, that I was a victim of systemic racism, which tends to keep talented people of color in lower paying, often non-leadership roles.
One day, I finally built up the courage to speak to Karen about my frustrations and share concerns over my future at the company. She acted insulted. Her face twisted as if she was calling 911 in her mind, “Help, there’s an African-American woman at my place of work telling me I’m not doing my job right.”
Although she didn't explode into hysteria, it took a long time for the fallout to settle. Within a few weeks she made it clear that I was no longer welcome and presented me with an ultimatum that ended in my resignation.
Work should be a place where we feel safe, a welcoming environment that fosters our potential—no matter who we are. I hope the Amy Cooper incident will drive more companies and business leaders to reexamine their diversity and inclusion efforts so that honest and hardworking employees have a fair shot at success, regardless of their skin color.