You’ve probably heard the story: mon and children trapped in a car filling with water. Mon tries to get them to safety, but a wave sweeps the little boys away. Residents nearby refuse any help, even just phoning 911.
An important fact is now reported. She is black; the neighbors white.
Police on Thursday said two brothers, ages 2 and 4, who were swept away Monday night when waves of water crashed into an SUV driven by their mother in Staten Island were found dead.
Glenda Moore left her Staten Island home with two children and was driving to a family member’s house in Brooklyn when her car became submerged underwater. She freed her two kids from their car seats but rushing waves of water swept the kids away from her arms.
“It went over their heads… She had them in her arms, and a wave came and swept them out of her arms,” the mother’s aunt told the NY Daily News.
Local Staten Island newspapers have reported the mother unsuccessfully tried to get help from neighbors but the New York Daily News is reporting another side of the story:
According to the sister, a dripping-wet Moore banged on doors looking for help in the middle of the hurricane, but couldn’t find anyone willing to help her.
“They answered the door and said, ‘I don’t know you. I’m not going to help you,’” said the sister. “My sister’s like 5-foot-3, 130 pounds. She looks like a little girl. She’s going to come to you and you’re going to slam the door in her face and say, ‘I don’t know you, I can’t help you’?’”
Moore spent the night huddled on a doorstep as the hurricane’s assault continued. At daybreak, her sister said, the desperate mother walked until she found a police car and related her heart-breaking story…
This is so unbelievably horrific, infuriating, and heartbreaking.
There was a thread on 4chan about this (not going to link). I know there’s always a lot of trolling/lulz in anything posted there, but if that’s any indication of the way some white people think in the US, that country has some serious problems.
This is not an uncommon reaction to emergencies, independently of considerations of race. Recall the case of Kitty Genovese.
Where in the article linked (or other relevant article) does it mention the race of the neighbors? I couldn’t find it anywhere, but that just might be a result of less than careful reading.
Still terrible, but perhaps not racist-terrible (like anon-7:14 points out).
I saw some of the residents caught on camera. There were white. One man, who had refused to open his door to her, said he didn’t have any obligation to help, because he is not a social worker. She was asking people to call 911; no one did.
There’s a lot in the press about at least early on a rising sense of community and helping out. But not here, it seems.
Aren’t there now pretty good reasons to be suspicious of the portrayal of the Kitty Genovese case as an example of bystander effect (e.g. in the 2007 paper by Manning, Levine and Collins)?
Anonymous, I am very surprised by the article you cite, which says there’s no evidence there were 37/8 witnesses. Here’s an account in the NY Times of the days shortly after the murder, with cops interviewving witnesses:
Here’s the original Gansberg article, which some people are now saing was part of a hoax:
this story reminds of a recent blog post i was tempted to comment on, but my thoughts had been reflected by others – is it racist to say you wouldnt date someone who is african american? (yes, it is – it is an essentialist statement, and in any case, doesnt need to be said. there are so many reasons not to date an individual other than their skin colour, unless you are at least latently racist).
in an emergency one would normally spring to action unless ideological obstructions to that action exist – racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, etc. in this case, racism would seem an appropriate call judging from the information provided. excuses like ‘i dont want to get involved’ or ‘its dangerous’ are covers when the lives of young children are at stake. the simplicity of making a phone call? hell, any reasonable and principled person without their own dependents in the home would have rushed down those streets to help search.
so, when are people going to start calling this kind of intolerance and hate what they are? however mild or hidden they seem to be, they are percolating at the surface of society and manifest in ways not much different to the more vigorous forms of the jim crow laws and kkk.
annjjacobson: I think the article I cited was bringing in to question the contents of the news reports you refer to, and the statements of the police officers given in them (though people calling it a hoax rather than just lousy journalism and police overstatement is perhaps too strong). I’ve found an accessible link to the article here: http://www.grignoux.be/dossiers/288/pdf/manning_et_alii.pdf
There are of course independent studies that support the bystander effect, so the claim isn’t that things like this don’t happen, just that the Kitty Genovese case is probably not such an extreme example of it as it has been made out to be.
(Also, I completely acknowledge that what the article claims could be false – I just thought it was worth mentioning.)
This is heartbreaking. What the hell is wrong with people? I’m white and wouldn’t think twice about helping someone regardless of race, sex, age, whatever. I’ve always thought Americans were helpful and uber friendly… Perhaps not all of them! Wow. I’d like to argue that those people should be held responsible in some way… It’s sick. And even if race isn’t a factor (I’m not American and really have no idea about how bad race relations are over there) this is still utterly, utterly horrible. If race was the reason why they didn’t help then, really, I think that society needs to have a good long look at itself.
in an emergency one would normally spring to action unless ideological obstructions to that action exist
I’m not sure I believe this, in general. I think that a much more common reaction in an emergency is to do nothing, regardless of the reason, or to do as little as possible, unless someone else starts first and shames those doing nothing into action. People often think that they (and other good people) will help in most cases, but I think that it’s more likely that the “helpers” (at least those who start) are exceptions, even when the help needed or asked for is pretty small. (I wish I felt confident that I was an exception, but I don’t.) My father was a police officer for 30+ years, and I have talked with him about cases like this (not this one- I’ve just heard of it) and he says that his consistent experience is that people “springing into action” is very rare, regardless of the race of the people. Race may make help less likely, and might have played a role here- I can’t say with any certainty- but I think the default for most people is “don’t help” in the large majority of cases.
thanks for your view matt. i guess my experience is less relevant than your fathers, given the cultural difference – here, race and general disinterest would have its effect under some conditions and in some areas. however, under extreme/emergency conditions we seem to have people leaping to the aid of perfect strangers in all manner of ways. one couldnt count the number or diversity of such incidences during the wild fires, floods and hurricanes that knocked the east of australia over a 2 to 3 year period.
i’m loath to see people referring to readily to a psychological effect (or overly individualising the phenomena). if its a cultural thing, as it seems, then it is something to reflect on at a community level.
[…] the desperate mother walked until she found a police car and related her heart-breaking story. (source, […]
I think there are details that are important, particularly the fact that she was banging on people’s doors. And that no one would even call 911.
The bystander effect is suppose to be about what happens when there’s a group of on-lookers; this case was much more one on one.
Even if this is related to the bystander effect, I don’t think we can sweep aside the issue of race. Race greatly effects who are and are not our neighbors, and I would think that the bystander effect is different for people we consider “strangers” than for people we know or think of as “neighbors.”
So if race influences who we immediately peg as strangers and neighbors (and thus who we are more likely to help), then race has added to this tragedy.
Or it could be the other way around (sorta). Maybe part of the reason we help our neighbors more than strangers is in part because many of our neighborhoods are racially segregated (or not greatly integrated.) So even if it’s that the people would have only been willing to help those they knew by name in the neighborhood, race can still be playing a role (though on a broader scale.)
Either way, to lose your loved ones and to even consider the possibility, “If I were another race, would this have happened?” is….I don’t even know. Beyond heartbreaking.
Not quite the same as the Genovese case because the Bystander effect happens more often when we aren’t singled out to do something as the people who heard her knocking were. I’m still surprised by how little attention the Belle Isle Bridge incident (Deletha Word) gets in the media. The woman was black, her attacker was white (as were many of the bystanders). But, had they stood up to the attacker they risked harm. The people that refused to help Glenda Moore don’t have that defense. *Trigger for extreme violence. http://www.scribd.com/doc/22419915/The-Hidden-Brain-by-Shankar-Vedantam-sneak-preview