By now, you've probably seen the video; a white woman, dragging her dog by the collar, calling the police on an African American man who had asked her to keep that dog on a leash. The man, Christian Cooper, was birdwatching in the Ramble, an area of Central Park where dogs are required to be leashed. in response, the woman, Amy Cooper, called the police and told her she was being threatened by an African American man.

There's been no shortage of 'Karen' videos, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. Typically, they follow a set cycle; the clip blows up, the person in it is identified, and they publicly apologize (and sometimes lose their job in the process).

But Amy Cooper has struck a deeper nerve, in large part because of how obvious it was that she knew exactly what she was doing.

She raised her eyebrows at Mr. Cooper and said "I'm going to tell them that an African American man is threatening me," with emphasis on the words 'African American.' Amy Cooper knew what the implication of that statement was.

And when she raised her voice in faux-hysteria on the phone, claiming she was being threatened while the man supposedly threatening her stood calmly twenty feet away, she knew that she could be putting Christian Cooper in danger. She knew that the police would take her word over his.

Amy Cooper understood the biases she was playing into, and she didn't care. In fact, she used it as a weapon against a man who was simply asking her to follow the park rules.

For hundreds of years, white womanhood has been weaponized against Black men, from Emmett Till to the Scottsboro Boys. The idea that white women are supposedly fragile and need protection from African American men has been used to excuse violence, lynchings, and police brutality.

Amy Cooper knew the effect her words and her hysteria could have, and she used that to her advantage. As a result of this incident, she has lost her job and her dog. Christian Cooper could have lost his life.