America is still grieving for the 32 students and professors killed at Virginia Tech last week, as we should. Several people pointed out to me – to you too, probably – that five or six times as many innocent people died in Iraq last week. News is a product of importance multiplied by proximity. The Virginia Tech murders were thousands of miles – both geographic and cultural – closer to us than the violent deaths in Iraq.
On the other hand, we all had at least an indirect hand in the Iraqis’ deaths. Either we voted for George W. Bush or we didn’t do enough to get out the votes for his opponents. Our tax dollars pay to keep our troops an exacerbating presence in the middle of the Iraqi civil war.
Not all of the innocents killed in Iraq are caught in the Sunni-Shi’ite crossfire, either. The news carries too many stories of innocent people killed either carelessly or deliberately by U.S. soldiers. It happens in Afghanistan, too. This week Congress is looking into the cover-up of the friendly-fire death of former NFL star Pat Tillman, as it should, but where’s the outrage and grief for the woman whose husband and children are killed by the side of the road?
It’s another proximity issue, but it’s also a product of the politics of identity. We’re outraged when one of ours is killed; when one of “them” dies, even if that death is horrible and unjust, it’s not such a big deal. We too often judge right and wrong by identity, rather than behavior. Human lives in developing nations are sold at a discount, whether it’s the thousands who died when Union Carbide’s plant in Bhopal, India released methyl isocyanate 20 years ago or if they’re Mexican workers trying to earn a better life for their families in the U.S. Why do we scorn them? Because we can.
It happens every day. When’s the last time you saw someone dumping on an overworked sales clerk or waitress? It’s not the worker’s behavior that allows people to yell at minimum-wage employees; it’s their status. If the governor kept us waiting and then apologized for it, we wouldn’t yell at him, we’d say, “Oh, what a gracious man. He’s so busy and yet he apologized to us for keeping us waiting.” Waiters are busy too, but shit rolls downhill.
Most Palestinians are good people; a few are armed thugs who do terrible things to Israelis. Most Israelis are good people; a few are armed thugs who do terrible things to Palestinians. Problem is, the good people on each side tolerate bad behavior from their own clan for the sake of identity.
One can read the entire newspaper and see this again and again. Don Imus was fired, as he should have been, for using the same language that has blinged the necks of a thousand hip-hop artists.
Law? U.S. attorneys are fired, not for legal incompetence (behavior), but because they didn’t bend the rules to favor people who identify with their bosses’ party. Science? Federal scientists can’t publish what they discover (behavior) unless it conforms to the party line (identity). The sports page? Fugeddaboutit.
In Washington, extra-marital sex and influence buying are only scandalous behavior when practiced by members of the other party.
In other parts of the world – in India where non-Hindus are pushed out, in Pakistan where non-Muslims are pushed out, in the Balkans where one needs a scorecard to keep track of who’s pushing who out – it’s called ethnic cleansing, but it’s the triumph of identity over behavior.
Worse, not only do people see the world through the prism of their identity group, but every one of those identity groups seems to have gotten the idea that it is oppressed. I’m amazed at how often I hear healthy, educated people who have missed neither a meal nor a mortgage payment in their entire lives, whining about how unfair life is to them and people like them and then using that perceived victim status to harden their hearts against members of some other group.
We as a species are technologically advanced and ethically immature. The paradise promised by so many religions is well within our material grasp, but it is forever out of reach because we are shackled by greed and self-dealing.
It’s a global problem, but one that can only be solved by beginning as close to home as possible. In America, we will not make progress on racism until white people hold each other accountable, sexism must be fought by men and poor people will never get a fair shake as long as the rich take every tax cut and clamor for more.
Because We Can
America is still grieving for the 32 students and professors killed at Virginia Tech last week, as we should. Several people pointed out to me – to you too, probably – that five or six times as many innocent people died in Iraq last week. News is a product of importance multiplied by proximity. The Virginia Tech murders were thousands of miles – both geographic and cultural – closer to us than the violent deaths in Iraq.
On the other hand, we all had at least an indirect hand in the Iraqis’ deaths. Either we voted for George W. Bush or we didn’t do enough to get out the votes for his opponents. Our tax dollars pay to keep our troops an exacerbating presence in the middle of the Iraqi civil war.
Not all of the innocents killed in Iraq are caught in the Sunni-Shi’ite crossfire, either. The news carries too many stories of innocent people killed either carelessly or deliberately by U.S. soldiers. It happens in Afghanistan, too. This week Congress is looking into the cover-up of the friendly-fire death of former NFL star Pat Tillman, as it should, but where’s the outrage and grief for the woman whose husband and children are killed by the side of the road?
It’s another proximity issue, but it’s also a product of the politics of identity. We’re outraged when one of ours is killed; when one of “them” dies, even if that death is horrible and unjust, it’s not such a big deal. We too often judge right and wrong by identity, rather than behavior. Human lives in developing nations are sold at a discount, whether it’s the thousands who died when Union Carbide’s plant in Bhopal, India released methyl isocyanate 20 years ago or if they’re Mexican workers trying to earn a better life for their families in the U.S. Why do we scorn them? Because we can.
It happens every day. When’s the last time you saw someone dumping on an overworked sales clerk or waitress? It’s not the worker’s behavior that allows people to yell at minimum-wage employees; it’s their status. If the governor kept us waiting and then apologized for it, we wouldn’t yell at him, we’d say, “Oh, what a gracious man. He’s so busy and yet he apologized to us for keeping us waiting.” Waiters are busy too, but shit rolls downhill.
Most Palestinians are good people; a few are armed thugs who do terrible things to Israelis. Most Israelis are good people; a few are armed thugs who do terrible things to Palestinians. Problem is, the good people on each side tolerate bad behavior from their own clan for the sake of identity.
One can read the entire newspaper and see this again and again. Don Imus was fired, as he should have been, for using the same language that has blinged the necks of a thousand hip-hop artists.
Law? U.S. attorneys are fired, not for legal incompetence (behavior), but because they didn’t bend the rules to favor people who identify with their bosses’ party. Science? Federal scientists can’t publish what they discover (behavior) unless it conforms to the party line (identity). The sports page? Fugeddaboutit.
In Washington, extra-marital sex and influence buying are only scandalous behavior when practiced by members of the other party.
In other parts of the world – in India where non-Hindus are pushed out, in Pakistan where non-Muslims are pushed out, in the Balkans where one needs a scorecard to keep track of who’s pushing who out – it’s called ethnic cleansing, but it’s the triumph of identity over behavior.
Worse, not only do people see the world through the prism of their identity group, but every one of those identity groups seems to have gotten the idea that it is oppressed. I’m amazed at how often I hear healthy, educated people who have missed neither a meal nor a mortgage payment in their entire lives, whining about how unfair life is to them and people like them and then using that perceived victim status to harden their hearts against members of some other group.
We as a species are technologically advanced and ethically immature. The paradise promised by so many religions is well within our material grasp, but it is forever out of reach because we are shackled by greed and self-dealing.
It’s a global problem, but one that can only be solved by beginning as close to home as possible. In America, we will not make progress on racism until white people hold each other accountable, sexism must be fought by men and poor people will never get a fair shake as long as the rich take every tax cut and clamor for more.
© Mark Floegel, 2007