Aid or apathy

Back in May I wrote about being affected by one documentary about Kitty Genovese and one article about Prince Harry:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/05/getting-to-two-things-about-grief.html

While those were seemingly disparate topics, they both seemed to be very much about grief. I mentioned at the end that I would read two more books. I wondered if they would also go together, and how much it was in me to just see grief in everything right now.

After reading Spare in August (I also watched their documentary) and No One Helped in September, there is a lot more than grief and they do not particularly go together. 

In the case of No One Helped: Kitty Genovese, New York, and the Myth of Urban Apathy, author Marcia M. Gallo takes more of a sociological approach, and it is for everyone else. There is a mention of the family, but grief requires a more personal relationship. For those outside of her circle of friends, Kitty only became known as a symbol.

Gallo does address the myth, but spends more time on the effects of the myth. 

For the record, the original New York Times story made it sound like 37 people watched the murder happening over a period of time and no one called the police or attempted to intervene. That was never true.

There were some people who heard one thing, but then could not see anything. One person saw something, yelled, and that seemed to interrupt it. There were at least two calls to the police, possibly more. One woman called but was not able to speak when they answered. Records are not always great years later, and it was not a particularly organized system even then.

Perhaps the way the police mentioned it to the editor related to the murderer having two previous victims, one very recent. If they had worked those cases harder, the murderer might never have had a chance to hurt Kitty. There were certainly things they mishandled, including not responding to the calls they did get.

Is it relevant that the other recent victim was a Black woman? Even editor A.M. Rosenthal acknowledged that crimes among Black New York residents did not get much attention. Would the police have tried harder to solve the case if Annie Mae Johnson had been white, or at least wealthy?

Rosenthal turned Kitty's murder into symbol of apathy and decried the lack of personal responsibility. Gallo points out that he was ignoring a high degree of community participation, but probably ignoring that because people were participating in ways he didn't approve of, like protesting war and fighting for school integration.

The other point made is that the best result of the murder was the development of what became the 9-1-1 system, which required government action and not just individual efforts.

There is a lot in the story about conservatism, racism, and classism. There is even homophobia; the police were terrible to Kitty's partner, even though there was no reason to suspect her. One person who did not call the police did not do so because he was scared of them. However, he called someone else, which did bring aid. 

Not being able to trust the police in various circumstances remains a problem.

We will spend more time on patriarchy and power dynamics, but before that I want to spend a little space on my experiences with 9-1-1.