TRUTH AND POLITICS (Part 2): Empathy Across the Race Line.

The Majority of Americans of Any Race Are Not Inhuman

There is perhaps a deficit of empathy in America. And if there is, it affects everyone. If we were a truly empathetic nation we would not allow our military to decimate tens of thousands of civilians in Syria and Iraq in a questionable strategy against Islamic State. We would also be reining in Saudi Arabia and not implicitly supporting it in its destruction of the Yemeni population, and we would compel our politicians to end support for Israel in its illegal appropriation of Palestinian land.

There is sufficient evidence to suspect that as a nation we have a problem with empathy. But this problem is not circumscribed by those who live in distant places.

A case in point is the essay, “I Don’t Give a Fuck About Justine Damond.” The author refers to himself as Son of Baldwin, who, incidentally, blocked me after my critical response to his previous essay, “Let Them Fucking Die.”

As many know, Justine Damond was the woman recently shot by a cop in Minneapolis. To not give a fuck about her death is the same as feeling no empathy. SOB’s lack of empathy is supported by his belief that most white people don’t care about the lives of black people: “I don’t give a FUCK about Justine Damond and what happened to her. I don’t give a fuck because most white people didn’t give a fuck when police murdered seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones as she lay on a couch, sleeping.” And: “I don’t give a fuck because a black woman (or a Native woman) in the identical situation Justine was in wouldn’t garner support or sympathy from most white people.”

Either SOB is delusional or he doesn’t really believe what he writes. Or if he believes what he writes he is subscribing to the belief that most white people are evil — which would be a belief based on faith not fact.

There have of course been many black (as well as white) deaths at the hands of the police. And all of these deaths are a concern to most Americans of any race. It is a serious moral and social problem when America’s police force recklessly kill innocent people. Mine is not the voice of a white minority; I’m reasonably sure that it is the voice of the majority of all human beings.

The meaning of SOB’s claims is in effect that “most white people” are devoid of empathy for the suffering of black people. In other words, we are inhuman monsters.

I don’t accept that thesis.

First, SOB’s claims are technically hard to test. So I really can’t disprove them by referring to a poll or some statistic. And even a poll would not be reliable. People often believe themselves to be more moral than they really are. Secondly, it is unlikely that these claims are true. Do we see a consistent series of actions or statements by “most whites” indicating a lack of empathy for the suffering and the unjust deaths of black Americans? What has been loudest is white protest against these killings.

That said, there has been consistent right wing support for cops who have killed unarmed civilians as this story in Vox reveals. But the views on Breitbart and other alt-right outlets do not represent majority opinion. It is unfair to accuse most white Americans of a lack of humanity because of the views of a minority.

What does support SOB’s claim is the fact that in the Stanley-Jones killing the offending officer was unwisely acquitted of the charge of manslaughter — but it also has to be said that the role of the black judge in that decision was instrumental. And in general there has been little success in prosecuting officers who have killed innocent people. Too much deference is given to the police when they go out of control. The judicial system’s close alliance with enforcement is most likely an important factor here.

But in his essay SOB doubts the humanity of white people because their reaction to Damond’s death in Minneapolis is more pronounced than their reaction to the many black victims of police excesses over the last several years. That discrepancy has not gone unnoticed. Also, the political repercussions have been swifter. The Minneapolis chief of police promptly resigned.

On the level of narrative, we have to acknowledge a great and tragic irony to the Damond killing. She herself had appealed to the police because she suspected someone nearby was being assaulted. She was doing what right-minded people should do: respond to another’s distress. Instead of saving a victim, she became the victim. A horrific reversal. Almost a textbook definition of tragedy.

Regardless, the facts surrounding the aftermath do feed the suspicion that white people care more about white people than they do about black people. Unfortunately, this is more than a suspicion. It is almost impossible for any group to control what sociologists refer to as in-group/out-group dynamics. Human beings are naturally predisposed to favor their own group — despite sanctimonious claims to the contrary and despite laws that sanction such behavior. The theoretical biologist, Richard Dawkins, would say that this is how specific genes prevail over other genes. In other words, everyone is biased whether they know it or not — and that bias may actually operate on the molecular level. Irrespective of this probable biological predisposition toward in-group bias, it is pure intellectual dishonesty to assert as if it were fact that most white people — and therefore the majority of Americans — did not give a fuck about a seven-year-old victim (Stanley-Jones) of police manslaughter.

This really does go beyond race. People in general, white or not, are outraged by these unjustifiable killings. They are a crime against humanity. It is true that most white people in America still feel safer around the police than most black people. It is clear that the lethal tendencies of the police need to restrained. Bernie Sanders has spoken out about this irrational and destructive tendency in the nation’s police departments.

SOB is saying in effect that most white people are inhuman and are incapable of caring for anyone but other white people. However, his conception of humanity is perverted. In general, people do care about injustice and get very upset when they see an innocent man like Walter Scott shot in the back by a police officer in North Carolina; it’s human nature to be disturbed by this. Again, it goes deeper than race. To say that white people are not disturbed by such an inhuman act is to deny white people their humanity. And that’s fundamentally unfair.

Another writer, Biko Mandela Gray, has amplified on SOB’s position. I criticized his reasoning in his support for SOB, and I was again promptly blocked. (Is this America’s problem — the blocking off of other voices?) That’s a discouraging response. It means no discussion and that this writer is, despite lack of evidence, fully confirmed in his belief that white people lack empathy for black people. I have to interpret this blocking action as a desire to cling to a belief regardless of what the facts and reason say. We are in the realm of faith then — faith in the evil soul of white America. It’s a faith that then gives support to hatred, and so it’s wrong and serves a cynical end. There seems to be in SOB and Gray a will to hate that is desperately searching for justification. And that justification cannot be found in facts. Therefore, it is found in faith. (Ironically, Gray is an assistant professor of religion at Syracuse University.)

And just like those of the alt-right who claim that the over-militarized police officers of America are noble beings protecting us from evil-doers, without reasoning through their claims or closely inspecting facts, so many uncritical souls on the left will find what I say to be one more racist screed prettied up by trivial things like reasoning and facts. Again, just as with most fundamentalists, faith is stronger than fact.

This confusion is troubling. And it is poisonous. SOB (and Gray in support) is unmoved and feels no compassion about Damond’s killing — so he says. Consequently, he is confessing (sadly) that he has lost some of his humanity — and only because he seems to believe that white people don’t care. It is as though he is throwing away a part of his humanity based on a false assumption. That too is tragic.

The position expressed by SOB and affirmed by Gray has to be challenged. It is as though these writers have turned off their humanity as a response to a falsely perceived lack of humanity in others. True, we have most likely witnessed an example of in-group bias in the case of Damond. White middle-class people probably do feel more concerned about white-middle class people than they do about other groups. Any group tends to defend its own type more than other types.

Still, despite this inherent bias in human nature, almost no one can regard the killing of an innocent without a sense of anger and frustration. That is also a part of human nature. A man, Walter Scott, being shot in the back as he ran from a cop because he was afraid — the act captured on a cell-phone camera — caused every human being to feel nauseated and disgusted by what looked like a blood sport killing. If we didn’t feel disgust and anger over that we wouldn’t be human. It was a bad day for America. I confess that I and many like me did absolutely nothing about that event other than feel concern over a country in which its guardians seem involved in practicing homicide on innocent people. Also, I have done absolutely nothing in connection with the Justine Damond killing — until this moment.

Just because a racial group (and perhaps economic and professional too) raises a louder alarm when one of its members is attacked, that doesn’t mean that it is devoid of feeling for other groups when they are under attack. From the point of view of pure social justice, that may be wrong; but it is probably the best we humans can do. (Of course, as a matter of official public policy and practice this would certainly be wrong.)

There are two sides to this situation: 1) inherent in-group bias and 2) the human compulsion to feel pity and sorrow when another human being is killed — especially unjustly. And one side does not negate the other. All human beings are biased, and most of us also feel pity for the victims of this world regardless of what group they can be placed within.

This is the argument that Son of Baldwin and Gray need to hear. Both are eager to hate based on their own misperception (and I do interpret their thesis as an expression of hate). To not give a fuck about Damond is hate, but it is not justifiable hate. It is based on a false perception of humanity.

Human beings are weak and imperfect creatures. We cannot hate each other simply because of our endemic weaknesses. Then we are lost as a species.

A few statistics to add fuel to the fire:

Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that between 1960 and 2010, black men were always more than 2.5 times as likely to die due to legal intervention than white men.

But statistics also show that blacks committed 52% of homicides between 1980 and 2008. However, blacks represent 13.2 % (in 1980 11.7 %) of the population. The other 87% of the population (comprising whites, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans, etc.) accounted for 48% of all homicides. If these statistics are correct, then blacks as a group were responsible for 6.5 times as many murders than all non-blacks. (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf)

These statistics show that the issue is not as black and white as some think. However, I’m a long way from justifying the use of deadly force by the police.

That said, the issue of black deaths such as Stanley-Jones’s and Walter Scott’s cannot be dismissed or mitigated by citing statistics.

As some have pointed out there has been a militarization of America’s police forces over the last decade, and the Swatification of police procedure (the Stanley-Jones case) is pure overkill.

And ultimately the issue is not about numbers. It’s about the unfair and unnecessary wasting of human life.

If there is more criminal activity (robbery and violence) among certain groups, the culprit is always economics. Black people are less likely to finish high school and go on to college. Thirty per cent of people who do not finish high school acquire criminal records. They are being cheated out of their fair share of the nation’s wealth. Money that could be used for their social improvement is spent on 13 billion dollar aircraft carriers and failed-in-advance wars whose only beneficiaries are the military contractors and corrupt politicians in far away places (Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Israel, in particular). I myself have strong criminal urges when contemplating the fact that Egypt, Israel, and Pakistan over the last 10 years have received more than 50 billion dollars in American aid — a dictatorship on the one hand and an apartheid state on the other, and in between Pakistan a supporter of the forces the US is fighting against.

Violence is a result of anger. And anger is the necessary result of being at the bottom of the social totem. All poor people are angry. But black poor people are even angrier since their disadvantage is (among other things) that they fall into the category of an easily identifiable out-group.

SOB and Gray are wrong to so blindly condemn white Americans as a whole (or the majority). Especially without doing research. Both writers make assumptions that are in themselves acts of ignorance that only misguidedly feed hate. There is nothing to suggest that the American white majority is as inhuman as these two writers say it is. They are falsely denying white people their humanity.

I will also say that their anger should be focused on an economic system that betrays approximately 98% of the American people — especially the poorest Americans. There is more than enough wealth to go around. If collectively we can spend 13 billion on an aircraft carrier, we can also spend a billion or two on the schools of Detroit and east Oakland. Investment in war has over the last 50 years produced only negative returns, and I don’t need any statistics for that claim. Investments in people — especially those most deprived — really will produce a net gain for everyone.

The high homicide rate for blacks bespeaks a war right here in America. As a former educator and as someone who was born poor I can say that education is the great healer. It gives people the tools to think and gives people a complete identity by being a source of value to others. It lifts the psyche and one’s self-esteem.

It is no coincidence that our country’s outsize investment in war trickles down to the police departments across the country and militarizes law enforcement practice, the effect being the Swatification of enforcement. It is no surprise because that investment is so enormous that the excess finds its way onto the domestic social level.

To review the facts. There is no rational basis to the claim that the majority of white people do not care about the killing of blacks by the police.

American law enforcement is using heavy handed tactics, which I call the Swatification of the police force.

Some officers are unfit for police work. One of the most disturbing cases is Walter Scott being shot in the back by a cop in North Carolina.

The reaction to the killing of Justine Damond by whites is greater and had more political repercussions than any in response to a black victim.

White people are biased toward their own race. Also, black people are biased toward their own race. These facts seem to be part of human nature. But these biases are minimal compared to our compassion for our fellow humans. That compassion does not stop at any notional race line. In general, white people do not stop feeling for a person because they’re black, and black people do not stop feeling for a person because they’re white.

Our species bond is much stronger than our racial dissimilarities. It may be that a small minority are filled with hate, and they discharge that hate falsely on people who are different from them. But that is a sickness not shared by the majority.