Movies Thoughts on this scene in A Time to Kill.

[BoomStronk]

I think you’re out of touch with people outside of major cities on the east and west coast, if you ever thought that 1996 middle America or southern America was ever so racist that they would be indifferent to the rape of a pre-teen because she was black.

There’s really nothing else to debate, because there’s no way we can convince each other we’re right, I just felt the need to put that out there.

How do you know this? You're claiming that I'm unconvinceable because I disagree with your assertion. I'm refering to studies that have been done and real world examples about human capacity for empathy for people who seem different. Also, I don't live anywhere near a large city on the coast, and I was born and raised in a very small rural community. I don't know anything about American coastal elites, I've barely even met any.

There's an important difference between "indifferent" and "less empathetic."

This is clearly the first time you've bothered thinking about this, but it isn't mine. I'm more than willing to change my mind. It's not an opinion, it's a well established fact. Read up on it.

 

[jeff7b9]

p back to reality just before the jury renders its judgement. The message is something like, "acknowledge we all have enduring racial tendencies that need to be pushed back on by our better, more rational selves, do yhe right thing with your higher brains in this moment, given that you might unthinkingly have less empathy for this situation due to the fact the little girl is a black girl."

It's an interesting thought exercise. But definitely the first and foremost thought that comes to mind is "that is someone's daughter" more than really identifying with the race of the victim

So, i guess what you're suggesting about the high bar is true. We know from coverage of the Ukraine war, for example - and from numerous other studies that people of all types absolutely do have different levels of compassion for other people relating to how similar to themselves these other people look/seem.

So as it pertains to war there is a long standing psychological tactic sometimes referred to as "othering" which is to portray the opposing side in battle as "sub human" or 'less than' which is done to circumvent the human instinct to value human life.


This has certainly been done extensively with race and you don't even have to go back all that far to find relatively widespread mainstream propaganda which uses this tactic. In US war propaganda, going back to WW2 and the Korean War and to a lesser (but not that much less) extent Vietnam, where a lot of stereotypes are used. Slanted eyes, comedically over exaggerated accents

More currently you see the concept of "did you kill any people? - no just commies" ... which is kind of fucked up (regardless of who people feel.pllitically) because much more likely that is just a dude born in a place trying to get back home to his family, just as you are, and sure, to some extent he is fighting for whatever system he was.born into, but the "guy who is trying to get home to his family" part, I guarantee, is a more truthful description of that other guy than the way you are trained or influenced to see him so that you can pull the trigger .

Do you disagree with this contention, do you think that the average white person, say, has precisely the amount of sympathy(edit: I meant "empathy", not "sympathy") for a black victim than a white one?

I'm sure that's true to varying extents. I think it is a lot to do with familiarity. I grew up and currently live new New York City so in terms of races other than my own (white), blacks are really the most familiar to me. Being perfectly honest, I would say I relate much more to black culture and better than I do to middle Eastern, Islamic, or various other foreign groups including some which are predominately white.

As far as the empathy, and specifically relating to this scene, my reaction was a guttural reaction to the brutal treatment of a young innocent female. There's a lot of fucked up things humans do which even if I don't condone, I understand. I "get" why theft, and fighting and a lot of violence occurs, I can not for the life of me relate to the motivation of someone raping or victimizing a female, and especially a young female THAT was the part of the scene that"jumoed off the page" at me.

So... long winded and non particularly succint or linear answer is that I don't think my empathy for a female, or a child, or a young woman who is targeted would be all that different based on the race maybe... on some small subconscious level, but I think the much much more prevalent instinct is that of empathy towards the INNOCENT.

 

[BoomStronk]

It's an interesting thought exercise. But definitely the first and foremost thought that comes to mind is "that is someone's daughter" more than really identifying with the race of the victim

I suppose we could say I'm more talking about the sub-linguistic thought processes. Once we're at the level of catchphrases and rationalizations, we aren't talking about subliminal impulses, but the linguistic executive functioning and self-reflective thought.

So as it pertains to war there is a long standing psychological tactic sometimes referred to as "othering" which is to portray the opposing side in battle as "sub human" or 'less than' which is done to circumvent the human instinct to value human life.


This has certainly been done extensively with race and you don't even have to go back all that far to find relatively widespread mainstream propaganda which uses this tactic. In US war propaganda, going back to WW2 and the Korean War and to a lesser (but not that much less) extent Vietnam, where a lot of stereotypes are used. Slanted eyes, comedically over exaggerated accents

More currently you see the concept of "did you kill any people? - no just commies" ... which is kind of fucked up (regardless of who people feel.pllitically) because much more likely that is just a dude born in a place trying to get back home to his family, just as you are, and sure, to some extent he is fighting for whatever system he was.born into, but the "guy who is trying to get home to his family" part, I guarantee, is a more truthful description of that other guy than the way you are trained or influenced to see him so that you can pull the trigger .

And on the other side, too - it's an interesting perspective to see the entire 2nd world war through. The Japanese according to the allies were subhuman, irrational slaves to the emperor. The Americans, according to the Japanese were bloodthirsty baby-eaters against whom surrender was impossible. The Germans according to their enemies were methed up sociopaths hellbent on extermination and thereofre inhuman(e). The Jews and many other minorities were obviously likewise considered subhuman vermin. It's like everybody involved necessarily saw their enemies as animals. It's also going on in Gaza right now.

I'm sure that's true to varying extents. I think it is a lot to do with familiarity. I grew up and currently live new New York City so in terms of races other than my own (white), blacks are really the most familiar to me. Being perfectly honest, I would say I relate much more to black culture and better than I do to middle Eastern, Islamic, or various other foreign groups including some which are predominately white.

As far as the empathy, and specifically relating to this scene, my reaction was a guttural reaction to the brutal treatment of a young innocent female. There's a lot of fucked up things humans do which even if I don't condone, I understand. I "get" why theft, and fighting and a lot of violence occurs, I can not for the life of me relate to the motivation of someone raping or victimizing a female, and especially a young female THAT was the part of the scene that"jumoed off the page" at me.

So... long winded and non particularly succint or linear answer is that I don't think my empathy for a female, or a child, or a young woman who is targeted would be all that different based on the race maybe... on some small subconscious level, but I think the much much more prevalent instinct is that of empathy towards the INNOCENT.

There's an interesting field of psychological inquiry called Terror Management Theory, based on the 1975 pulitzer winning book The Denial of Death. They set up social psychological experiments where subjects are subtly prompted to remember or briefly consider their own mortality, and then very particular patterns of behavior consistently emerge - chief among these patterns is an increase in engagement with people deemed to be culturally or physically similar to the subject, and a correlating decrease in engagement and reported trust among people who seem different - the story here seeming to be that when we are frightened or feel unsafe, we tend to narrow our sense of empathy.

I know the whole anti-racism and white fragility movement is not without its issues, and I'm not here to wave that flag per se, but I do think we all clearly have a general tendency to more readily empathize with people in our in-group. There are exceptions to this of course, but generally speaking, we all see race and it matters on a pretty deep level. Many of our baseline urges and feelings need to be sort of tempered and handled by our higher executive abilities. That we seem to have an easier time developing deeper feelings of empathy toward people similar to us is borne out in many studies, and in the examples of the 2nd world war which you mention above - in the latter case, this seems to be a top-down reinforcement of the deeper impulses. Rather than a phrase like "that's someone's daughter" functioning as an attempt of the linguistic, executive brain sort of managing or directing the base impulse to widen empathy, the phrase " The japs are subhuman monsters" functions to narrow empathy and make killing easier. One of these phrases is used for war. The other is used for society in peacetime.

To me, the line speaks to this. My girlfriend and I just re-watched the movie a few months ago, and I remember coming away from it thinking about this very dynamic. Maybe I'm just getting older.