The Culture Of A Society Determines What Happens Within It
“I didn’t do it” is not enough, as the law reflects
At least 25% of women in the US military are raped — that’s 1 in 4, a significantly higher number than the already incredibly high 1 in 6 in the general population. More than 80% are sexually harassed. These are the numbers that the Pentagon self-reports, so their validity is not in question. It doesn’t matter very much what the ethos of an individual is if the culture of the group/society is dysfunctional. The US military undoubtedly has many honorable men in it, but the fact of the matter is, the overall culture of the military is about violent domination. So much so that, according to the Pentagon, 38 men are also raped every day.
Despite years of concerted efforts to get sexual assault and harassment under control in the military, the Pentagon reported that numbers actually increased by a staggering 38% between 2016 and 2018. Better education and awareness, and even increasing penalties for sexual misconduct have had no effect because the underlying issue isn’t being addressed. If you have a culture of violent domination, that is what will take place within it. The fact the most of the men who are in the military do not assault or harass makes no difference whatsoever. It demonstrably does not override the culture and the facts speak for themselves about that.
Cognitive scientist George Lakoff says that only about 2% of thought is conscious. (1) The rest is subconscious, made up of the values, beliefs, and social programming that we are raised with and adopt through our experiences. The bulk of racism and sexism is a result of this kind of implicit bias.
The evidence is overwhelming that unconscious bias seeps into decisions that affect recruitment, access to healthcare and outcomes in criminal justice in ways that can disadvantage people from ethnic minorities.
However, at the individual level, the extent to which such biases are internalised and acted on varies widely and in complex ways. Life experience, such as dating outside your racial group or having a boss from a minority group, can strongly protect against holding negative stereotypes. And there is dispute about the extent to which such biases are truly unconscious.
Perpetrators may even have certain consciously held positive beliefs, but in the moment, act entirely differently from their stated values, particularly if they are tired or otherwise under stress. They are reflecting the associations that they picked up on or were taught as young children or that are otherwise reinforced in their surroundings.
I’m speculating, of course, but I’ll bet that if last month you had asked Amy Cooper, the woman who was walking her dog off-leash in Central Park if she believed that black people were inferior, she likely would have said No. Few people believe that they are racist or that they hold discriminatory beliefs. But when a black man told her that she needed to leash her dog, as was the law, Amy Cooper reacted rather than responded. That reaction tapped into a place that says that black men don’t get to tell white women what to do, which is a deeply ingrained part of societal programming in the United States.
This same kind of social hierarchy was also tapped into when black forgery suspect George Floyd asked white police officer Derek Chauvin to take his knee off of his neck. Perps don’t get to tell me what to do, and especially not black ones, and neither do people in the crowd. I’m in charge here. Bystanders had been repeatedly asking the officer to remove his knee and to check for a pulse. Chauvin refused to remove his knee from the man’s neck even after he had been clearly unresponsive for several minutes while the other three officers at the scene kept the crowd from intervening. For what reason except to exert dominance?
When the culture of policing goes from Serve and Protect to You will obey my authority or else, people die; particularly black people. But even though Chauvin was the one with his neck on Floyd’s windpipe, the other three officers at the scene were also fired and are likely to be charged. Why? Because it is recognized, both in law and in more general understanding, that if someone commits a felony, the other people in the group are also responsible for that crime as well. The culture of that group is culpable beyond just the individual alone.
“It is common for more than one defendant to cooperate in the commission of a felony. Group participation in criminal conduct could constitute more than one crime — for example, conspiracy — and could also place criminal responsibility squarely on a defendant who did not commit the criminal act. The general rule for felony murder in many jurisdictions is that if one defendant kills a victim during the commission or attempted commission of a specified felony, all defendants involved in the felony are guilty of felony murder (State v. Hoang, 2011).”
In most jurisdictions, sitting idly by and watching someone else from your group commit a felony means that you are also responsible for that crime. In the case of the needless death of George Floyd, the fact that the other three officers did not have their knees on his neck does not exonerate them from responsibility. “Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said he anticipated charges against the other three officers involved in the incident.”
Your individuality as a human being counts, but your individualism is an illusion. You are not an island and the law reflects this. You are a part of a society and both your actions and inactions contribute to the culture or subculture of that society. That culture, in turn, determines what happens within the group. It is not enough to say, “I didn’t do it.” You are participating in the co-creation of the society that you live in, whether you want to be or not.
As was demonstrated with the military example above, you yourself not engaging in sexual harassment or assault does not impact the culture enough to protect the women and men who are harmed by that culture. Saying “I didn’t do it” does not keep them safe. Your personal responsibility extends beyond not just refraining from harmful behavior to actually participating in trying to keep it from taking place as well.
Several of the officers in the George Floyd case, including Derek Chauvin, had a history of questionable interactions with black suspects and have had complaints against them listed in the city’s Office of Police Conduct database. In 2017 Officer Tou Thao, who was one of the other three officers present in the Floyd case, paid an out of court settlement of $25,000 for punching a handcuffed suspect so hard he broke his teeth. Why are officers like this still on the force at all? Because the culture allows for it. The police department and the city of Minneapolis are also culpable in George Floyd’s death for not creating and enforcing a culture that truly reflects Serve and Protect, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a civil suit to that effect were to be filed.
If the law reflects that being a part of a group where one member commits a crime makes all members of the group equally responsible then you really don’t have much of a leg to stand on in insisting that you bear no responsibility for any actions other than your own. We have the society that we tolerate, and so in that respect, we are all responsible for George Floyd’s tragic death. Unless we use our individual words and actions to help create a society with a different kind of culture, we are abetting the guy with his neck on someone else’s windpipe. We are maintaining old cultural narratives about the inferiority of certain groups of people if they go unchallenged. As long as we uphold the social hierarchy is how long that it will exist. We all need to do and demand better.
© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.
(1) Lakoff, George. Moral Politics (p. 4). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.