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| Shirley Baker, Salford (1964) |
It seems scarcely believable that Ariel Castro, the man charged with kidnaping, raping and torturing three Cleveland women for over a decade, could have gotten away with such atrocities without anyone being aware of what he was doing.
The neighborhood where Ariel Castro lived is described as ‘close-knit’, with mostly Spanish speaking residents of Puerto Rican descent. How can a neighborhood be “close knit” when the sight of three naked women with chains around their necks, crawling on their hands and knees in someone's backyard only causes a mild reaction, enough to make a call to the local police, but not much more? Shouldn't the neighborhood be all up in arms about something like that? Are we living in a jungle or a civilized society?
It is clear that this monster Castro was the ultimate con artist. He fooled everyone, including the people closest to him, into thinking that he was a regular Jo. ‘Ariel Castro was always happy, nice, respectful’ says a neighbor-friend. But what does that mean, exactly? Does that mean that there was nothing seemingly wrong with the abuser, or is it possible that it's an indication of what's wrong with the concept of 'neighbor' in America? How much neighborly interaction is there in a 'close-knit' neighborhood?
We come from a small country. We have always criticized the Dutch for meddling in each others’ affairs too much. When we came to America, we felt like we could breathe again. But now we feel that maybe it’s better to have conflicts and be in each other’s hair. At least it prevents this kind of atrocity from happening, right there, in the dark, under our very noses.
The Dutch word for neighbor is 'buurman'. 'Buur' or 'boer' means 'farmer', so a neighbor is the farmer who lives next door. In the olden days, if you were smart you would make sure that you were on good terms with your farmer neighbor, because he was feeding your family. Hence the expression 'love thy neighbor'. How far have we come from the original concept of a neighbor? Especially in poor urban neighborhoods, where ‘trouble’ is more the norm than the exception, a neighbor's instinctive attitude is to ‘let things be’, to not 'meddle' in other people's affairs, to 'let sleeping dogs lie’. What these neighborhoods cherish is 'stability', even if it means shutting one's eyes to something obviously suspicious. Is this what happened here?
The French sociologist Emile Durkheim coined the word ANOMIE. By that, he meant normlessness, anarchy, excessive individualism. The opposite of anomie is community – Gemeinschaft in German. The question is, what causes societies to become anomic and to lose a sense of community?
Durkheim (and many other sociologists) have said a lot about this. For one thing, modern societies are far more anomic than tribal and pre-industrial societies. Since America has been the most “modern” society, at least in the 20th century, it also suffers from a relatively high level of anomie. Urbanization is another cause of anomie. We are all familiar with the stereotypical callousness and meanness of big city dwellers, who don’t seem to give a damn about you. New Yorkers epitomize this, but so do Parisians and big city dwellers everywhere. Then there is poverty, social class, etc.
The study of bystander apathy and its opposite, Good Samaritanism, is rich in the social sciences. Social Psychologists speak of the Kitty Genovese syndrome: the young woman who was stabbed to death in Brooklyn in 1969, while dozens of neighbors and bystanders heard her screams, witnessed her murder, and yet never even called 911.
So the problem is complex. Some American neighborhoods are disintegrating, due to some of the factors just mentioned. But the problem is generic. It is tied in with modernity, with poverty, with strife. It happens in many different parts of the world.
Castro lived in a neighborhood that is especially vulnerable because of poverty and a lack of police presence. That's where the fabric of human connectedness wears thin. That's where we need to rush to, put sandbags in place and prevent the erosion from causing irreparable damage and turn America into a jungle. leave comment here
3 comments:
Well now I must say, you are talking my language. I study neighborhood context on well-being. I emphasize how social cohesion within neighborhoods creates social capital which enables local residents to help each other out. What happend in Cleveland, Ohio is just the opposite. Perhaps, neighborly prying or just butting in to a neighbors business is less a reality today than it was in the 50s. I mean to say, neighbors dont spank each others kids let alone barge into each others house. When I was growing up in Watts, South Central, which consisted of mostly blacks and was considered a main hub- like the racial and ethnic enclaves that Herbert Gans writes about in his book, Urban Villagers . In my community, Mama Green could spank me if she saw me misbehaving and then tell my parents and they would spank me again. We had community mothers. Also, the neighborhood kids would walk all through the house so it was impossible to hide a crime scene. Also, we had nosy neighbors, who would report local business to the elderly gatekeepers of the community. I cant perceive a Castro like person keeping a secret like this in the impoverished racial ethnic enclaves which were vibrant up until the late 70s. Now with the influx of drugs, violence(gang related) and underclass(Black Middle class flight to the suburbs), you could commit murder in the streets and probably not have a cop come out to investigate until the next day.
Its sad. Thanks for this eye opening commentary on the changing structure of American Neighborhoods in poor areas. I think that anomie is rising and this will take an especially heavy toll on our most vulnerable populations.
Mes amis Tom et Madeleine,
Je suis d'accord avec M. Emile Durkheim. L'anomie explique bien le malaise de notre societe.
Aussi, les voles sont abominables. C'est pourquoi nous ne voyageons plus.
Merci bien pour vos article tres erudits.
We thank Gail and Tom for their astute sociological comments (Tom,
your French is excellent!
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