Remember Christian Cooper, the Black bird watcher who went viral after dealing with a Central Park Karen? Well, he has an Emmy now! That’s right, Cooper’s Disney+ series, “Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper,” won a Daytime Emmy over the weekend.
A quick refresher in case you forgot: in 2020, Cooper went viral in a video where a white woman, Amy Cooper (no relation), called the police on him after he simply asked her to leash her dog (in an area where leashing is required). Amy Cooper said, “an African-American man threatening my life,” on the call, which Christian, thankfully, caught entirely on camera, proving his innocence in the viral video footage.
While the unfortunate incident led to serious consequences for Amy (she was terminated from her job and received charges of false reporting), thankfully Cooper was able to take some pretty sour lemons and make lemonade, landing his own television series with National Geographic and Disney+.
Cooper won in the “Outstanding Daytime Personality - Non-Daily” category, taking to the Daytime Emmys stage to share his gratitude with his peers and those watching at home. The openly gay host said, “This is an unexpected journey from being a closeted queer kid in the 1970s and a Black kid in the almost totally then all-white field of birding, which makes this all the more thrilling.”
He continued to say in his speech that the “world has changed” and that, “no matter what anybody says or does we are not going back. We will only move forward together.”
As The Root reported, the series takes viewers, “into the wild, wonderful and unpredictable world of birds. Whether navigating volcanic terrain in Hawaii for elusive honeycreepers, trekking into rainforests in Puerto Rico for parrots, or scaling a bridge in Manhattan for a peregrine falcon, he does whatever it takes to learn about these extraordinary, feathered creatures and show us the remarkable world in the sky above.”
“Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper” is available to stream now on Disney+.