THE EMPATHY FILES: Helping us care!

MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2014

Part 1—Kristof’s latest story:
Ma Joad, Tom Joad and Preacher Casey? These were fictional characters.

The events of their lives were described in The Grapes of Wrath, a prize-winning book which everyone knew was a novel.

Those events were meant to capture the experiences of a great many people. But no one thought the Joads’ experiences had happened to actual people bearing those names out in the actual world.

No one tried to find Rose of Sharon so they could help her with her baby. No one tried to find Tom Joad to give him a place to hide.

You can learn a lot about the world from a well-written novel. A novelist’s story can help you conceive the real events which take place in the world.

That said, a journalist shouldn’t invent a novel—a perfect story—then present that story as fact. That may be what Sabrina Rubin Erdely did with the story she presented in this month’s Rolling Stone.

To a lesser extent, it may be what Nicholas Kristof did in yesterday’s New York Times.

Erdely told a perfect story about heinous misbehavior on a college campus. Kristof told a perfect story about a saint-like victim of s shooting who knows what it is to forgive.

Kristof’s story starts in 1990. In Florida, a 13-year-old boy with sixteen prior arrests shoots a woman in the face as part of a gang initiation.

The woman in question is horribly wounded; her youthful assailant is soon apprehended. Despite his youth, a judge sentences him to life without hope of parole.

In this passage shown below, Kristof describes the saint-like act of forgiveness which drives his perfect story. The youthful shooter was and is named Ian Manuel. Debbie Baigrie is the person he horribly wounded:
KRISTOF (12/14/14): Manuel found himself the youngest, tiniest person in a men’s prison—by his account, abused and fearful. One day as his second Christmas behind bars approached, he placed a collect phone call to Baigrie.

Baigrie debated whether to accept the charges. She said her dentist had wept when he had seen her jaw, for the bullet had torn out five teeth and much of her gum. She faced 10 years of repeated, excruciating surgeries, requiring tissue from her palate to rebuild her gum.

Still, she was curious, so she accepted the charges. Manuel said he wanted to apologize for the shooting. Awkwardly, he wished her and her family a Merry Christmas.

“Ian,” she asked bluntly, “why did you shoot me?”

“It was a mistake,” he answered timidly.

Later he sent her a card showing a hand reaching through prison bars to offer a red rose. Baigrie didn’t know whether to be moved or revolted. “I was in such pain,” Baigrie remembers. “I couldn’t eat. I was angry. But I’d go back and forth. He was just a kid.”

Thus began a correspondence that has lasted through the decades. “You are about one in a million who would write to a person that’s tried to take their life,” he wrote in one letter.

“I wish I was free,” he wrote in another. “To protect you from that evil world out there.”
“Thus began a correspondence that has lasted through the decades,” Kristof writes. A bit later, he describes Baigrie advocating for Manuel’s release from prison:
KRISTOF: Her husband and friends thought Baigrie was perhaps suffering from some bizarre form of Stockholm syndrome. “People were saying, ‘you’re an idiot,’” Baigrie recalls.

Yet she persevered and advocated for his early release. When the Supreme Court threw out life-without-parole sentences for juveniles who had not committed murder, she testified at his resentencing and urged mercy. It didn’t work: Manuel was sentenced to 65 years. He is now scheduled to be released in 2031.
Kristof uses his story to illustrate a wide array of points. In comments, many liberals praised Baigrie for her act of forgiveness, thanked Kristof for telling her story.

One commenter said something different. She said she had clicked on the links Kristof provided in his column. When she did, she found a somewhat different story being told about this case in Florida newspapers.

Kristof offers a range of ideas in this column. Some are straight from the 1970s, which doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. Some of his (apparent) ideas are very poorly explained, quite lazily argued for.

How should society treat Ian Manuel now that he's in his mid-30s? More generally, how should society deal with children like Manuel, who had been arrested a dozen times by the age of 13?

Those are important questions. They’re also hard to answer. We wish Kristof had spent a bit more time giving those answers, a bit less time tugging our heartstrings with his perfect story.

Rolling Stone told a perfect story about heinous misconduct on campus. As it turns out, the heinous events Rolling Stone described may not have occurred.

Kristof tells a perfect story about forgiveness. In its basic outlines, his story is certainly true, though he may have improved the facts a bit to make his tale more perfect.

Steinbeck told a great story too, but he told us it was a novel. In this, our brave new polarized age, many “journalists” no longer do that.

Final point:

Debbie Baigrie has shown a great deal of empathy for the person who shot her. Much of our broken politics turns on an important question:

Among all the people and groups in our sprawling society, how many people, how many groups, can you feel empathy for? Can you empathizes with some? With others, not so much?

Tomorrow: Clicking Kristof’s links

51 comments:

  1. What Kristof left out was that horrendous attacks on whites and Asians by black youths are relatively common. They generally receive little national publicity, so they're not as well known as, say, white police killing blacks. Just within the last couple of weeks a man was beaten to death with hammers by three black youths in St. Louis. Earlier that evening, the same youths had attacked another white man, but he escaped. In the same neighborhood a few days later, other black youths pulled a woman from her car and beat her, not fatally. In New Orleans, a young woman named Jessica Chambers was beaten, then doused with lighter fluid and burned to death. In this case, the perpetrators are unknown. This web site describes many such cases.

    The real problem is how to prevent these sorts of attacks. There exists in our society a bad element of anti-social people. Bob points out that a 13-year old with half a dozen arrests is one such. One victim's empathy is not particularly relevant to the ongoing general problem.

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    1. It's the old adage, man bites bog, at play. Mob attacks in black neighborhoods just aren't heinous enough to bring in the readers on a nationwide scale. For that you need white villains like the ones we normally see on TV. Then of course it becomes a teachable moment on how this is a pattern that happens all the time to the oppressed minority population.

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  2. David in Cal and Anonymous - I'm assuming that you're aware of this country's history regarding race? That's not to say that violence perpetrated by criminals who are Black should be ignored, but [sometimes] there's a legitimate reason why some stories are national and others aren't.

    And if you're concerned about unequal treatment of the races by the media, when was the last time a missing non-White woman or baby became national news, such as Jon-Benet Ramsey, Natalie Holloway, Laci Peterson, et al? Help me understand why you don't complain about that.

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    1. Some things just shouldn't be ignored, dousing someone with lighter fluid and setting them on fire is one of those things.

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    2. So you confirm the black hush-crime media bias and then excuse it because America was one of the destinations traveled by merchant slave ships in the 17th and 18th century. But then proceed to refute said media bias by providing missing person examples from 1996 and 2002. That's a strong take right there.

      I suppose you believe the fate of merchant-ship destination Haiti would be a just end to modern America as well.

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    3. Jonny Scrum-half, I am concerned with a particular sociopathic subgroup of blacks in this country. These people by and large do not seek ordinary, honest careers. They commit many crimes, including murders and other violent acts against whites and Asians. Their behavior harms everyone: their white and Asian victims, the larger black community who gets blamed, to a degree, for misdeeds by the sociopathic minority, and the sociopaths themselves. I'm concerned that their misdeeds get under-recorded by law enforcement agencies and under-reported by the media. The country is in a state of denial about the this problem, so we're not seeking solutions.

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    4. That excuse stopped being a legitimate explanation and useful point for positive change two generations ago. Since then its only usefulness has been to get black kids get shot by cops for being thugs ruined by excuse makers including "caring" libs.

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    5. The masses aren't in a state of denial about the problem of violence in the black underclass - rather, the mainstream media is intentionally doing all it can to suppress the truth, i.e., by very selectively reporting the sporadic instances of white-on-black violence and ignoring the more common opposite category.

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    6. In order to discuss black-on-black crime, you need to discuss racism and poverty. Let me know when the media has THAT discussion.
      BTW, I hope to live to be ten-thousand years old.

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    7. manjeb, the problem isn't entirely that the media ignore the more common opposite category of black on black violence. It's that they ignore the "value" system in the black community supported and perpetuated by the left which, defined in simplest terms, is increasingly "the opposite of civilization."

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    8. The mainstream media don't do anything intentionally except make money. They are not "liberal", it is just that you buy their stories, so they make more stories that you buy. Some people love to hear stories that make them very afraid (look at Fox news) and then some people like stories about goodness and forgiveness. Trying to tell them which stories to write is wishful thinking, unless you can guarantee that they will make even more money. That said, we have a right to complain (and complain loudly) if the stories they peddle are designed to misinform us or are simply not true. Fiction is not news.

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  3. OMB (The Grapes of BOB)

    "In comments, many liberals praised Baigrie for her act of forgiveness, thanked Kristof for telling her story." BOB

    Actually, in almost every comment we read which used the word "liberal" it was in a quite perjorative manner. Funny, but that is how it seems to be used most often by the OTB of late.

    We only found one person who identified him or herself as liberal. That comment did not praise Bairgre nor thank Kristof. In fact it took Kristof to task for suggesting the plight of low income male black youth was the problem of society. That commenter blamed the income disparity caused by the "plutocrats" BOB often wants us to think he deplores.

    Now we can presume there walks among you a person of such keen insight that they can read a comment and determine that the person who made it is a liberal or a conservative. We don't see anything in his body of work that suggests that keen, indightful person is BOB. That said, his worshipers may differ.

    "A (blogger) shouldn’t invent a novel—a perfect story—then present that story as fact." BOB (improved by your Zarkonship)

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    1. "Worshipers", you say. It must really annoy you that some people feel this blog is worthwhile.

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    2. No. It really annoys us to have to repeat ourselves
      so pre-human types can get, if not enjoy, the jokes.

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    3. Generalizing about comments is risky because they are a moving target.

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    4. Making things up about them is novelizing.

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    5. Somerby didn't "make things up" just because his characterization was different than yours.

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    6. Engaging in risky generalizations when characterizing real people is novelizing.

      Unless you are a blogger 'who is "rushing" his post "into print"' to paraphrase something a famous creative writing talent once wrote about a Rolling Stone journalist.

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    7. Commenters are not "real people". They are mostly trolls.

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    8. Shame on Bob for covering them, then. He knows better. They must help with his novella.

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  4. Is Kristof's point that Manuel's continued incarceration is actually a bad thing? If so, that's remarkably stupid. He may have only been 13 when he shot Baigrie in the face, but its clear that he was and is an extremely dangerous and violent sociopath. If he hadn't almost killed her at 13, he surely would have injured or killed others. It's a very good thing that Manuel and others like him are kept away from society - it's just sad that he had to seriously injure an innocent woman before society took action.

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  5. What is the different story we are supposed to see? No description, no link.

    Is this blog anything more now than relentless pursuit of Bad Liberals, even when the most specific charge is lazy thnking?

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  6. Victims of horrifying random crimes are routinely urged to forgive, as part of their therapy so that they can "move on" with their lives. That doesn't mean society must or should forgive much less release criminals from prison.

    We don't typically sentence children to life in prison because they are still changing, are not developed and may not be fully responsible for their crimes. That is true whether their crimes are major or minor. That doesn't mean they should be exempted from prison but it does suggest reassessment in adulthood.

    People like Andrew Vacchs have argued that there exist a type of juvenile too violent to be kept with other children, but that doesn't make them adults either.

    David wants to classify people as psychopaths regardless of age. I think his response lacks both empathy and understanding of what that term means. Like other forms of human variability, most psychopaths are nonviolent and law abiding. Putting people into special categories in order to punish them more harshly seems less optimal than figuring out how to deal with them appropriately.

    California just learned that with its 3 strikes law.

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    1. Anon 8:06 I don't want to classify people as sociopaths in order to punish them more harshly. I can't disagree that we should seek to treat these people appropriately, but I have no idea what that would mean. My preferred approach would be to work at designing a society that will push children away from sociopathic values. IMHO the unbalanced fuss and distorted reporting over Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown are counter-productive in this respect.

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    2. We think someone who would try to sneak in the bit about Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown is exhibiting their own sociopathic tendencies, so we would rather not have someone of David's calibre issuing opinions on this subject. That is, of course, unless one subscribes to the "It takes one to know one" school of thought. We don't.

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  7. I was driving a great distance last night. listening to a roundtable of journalists whose names I didn't recognize. One of them explained that Democrats were trounced last month because they neglected to frame their values and accomplishments within a "story." You need a story to tell, this wise scribbler explained to his listeners, as if he were repeating the obvious. A litany of disconnected non-contextualized facts is dry and boring for the pesky masses we must let vote every couple of years, went the rationale.

    For years Somerby has been insisting that the Press avoids dryness and boredom by fashioning the facts it finds into an agreed upon narrative, or story. True or false, at least this journalist thinks politicians should become authors themselves.

    Funny thing is, politcians and their spokesmen have been telling stories for eons. Naifs like Somerby believe it's still the press's job to deconstruct these fictions and present the public with the simple objective truth in clear unadorned prose.

    Too bad Truman Capote didn't just make up a good story based on the Klutter murder and let some ink-stained wretch* handle the non-fiction version.

    *("Ink-stained wretch") was how terrific reporter Haynes Johnson described himself in his autograph to me.)

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    1. People respond to stories because we think in stories -- that's how we organize and make sense of the randomness of the events of our lives. That may be an effective way to live our daily lives but it isn't the best way to understand what is going on in the world. Science is better for that and it doesn't thrive on constructing pleasing narratives regardless of facts.

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    2. I don't think fictionalized storytelling is about protecting the public from dryness and boredom, it's just laziness meets low standards.

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    3. It's a "story" if a group journalists makes up a lie about a presidential candidate and tell it over and over with no push back from the journalists and bloggers in that candidate's party.

      There is some push back about Clinton speech fees and nefarious requests for carrots. A little. Which is good.

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    4. It's a "story" if a college roomate of a presidential candidate concocts a "war" against that candidate
      based on press coverage of that candidate's propensity for inartful statements which the candidate and his staff ineffectively countered at the time. Of couse, when the "story" has an ending which doesn't quite fit the outcome in real life, that has to be altered as well.

      And for the rest of time, all journalism must be compared to the "war story" and all journalists must be judged based on "what they did in the war."

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    5. Journalists aren't supposed to just make things up.

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    6. No. Neither are candidates. Or bloggers.

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    7. 9:56 is the Maddow commenter.

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    8. 10:13 is 10:01 demonstrating she/he thinks it is just fine for commenters to make things up in defense of a blogger who makes things up to criticize journalists who make things up.

      And that's the way it is today in a world without gatekeepers.

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    9. Anonymous @ 8:15 what is it with Clinton and the carrots?

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    10. ". . . with no push back from the journalists and bloggers in that candidate's party."

      I see. So the problem is not enough "tribalism" in journalism instead of too much.

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    11. I am pissed nobody has defended celery sticks!
      Crudite defense is so damned tribal.

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  8. Kristoff writes a COLUMN, in which he seeks to persuade people of certain things, One of the things writers do to persuade is TELL STORIES. But now, anyone who tells stories is JUST LIKE the RS reporter -- at least, according to Bob. This is a lazy way of denigrating anyone Bob dislikes (ie, anyone associated with the left who has an audience, it seems). We now wonder how long we will see this construct used: the RS reporter wrote this story, and everything Bob dislikes is JUST LIKE what the RS reporter did.

    Keeping score: The entirety of the "War on Gore" period is JUST LIKE what Erdely did in RS.

    Kristoff writing a column in which he got all the facts straight, but still somehow failed to meet Bob's sky-high standards (for the left), is JUST LIKE what Erdely did.

    We look forward to what event tomorrow will be twisted into being JUST LIKE what Erdely did. We admit our imagination is not up to the task of guessing, so we'll leave it to Bob to once again amaze us.

    We issue a challenge to Bob: go over the reasoning he now uses himself with the same degree of attention and care that he used when he was deconstructing the press during the Gore years, and even a few years after that. To us, what goes on here every day is actually worse. Instead of beating up on Gore, though, Bob just beats up on the entire left opinion apparatus, but the methods and (lack of sound) reasoning are the same.

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    1. Bob just doesn't get it, we'd be lost without Rachel Maddow.

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    2. Aww. The poor left opinion apparatus is getting beat up by a powerful, disingenuous blogger from Baltimore! Let's issue a challenge to him so the madness stops and it can get back to normal.

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    3. "One of the things writers do to persuade is TELL STORIES." Newspaper reporters and columnists need to be called out of these persuasive stories are fictional right?

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    4. Maddow - Bob made a distinction between fictional stories and true stories. I understand it is frustrating and painful for you to read this blog. I empathize with your feelings and hope you can find peace soon. All the best to you.

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    5. 9:17 if Bob makes the distinction between fictional stories and true stories it is a shame he does eschew the use of fiction to deplore the fiction he thinks he has found.

      "Judge not lest ye be judged" some hippie radical is reported to have said. In a story.

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    6. It is a greater shame if Bob doesn't
      eschew. So eschews me for not prooofing my comment fully.

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  9. Hoax: St. Louis Woman Who Claimed She Was Attacked By Black Teens Made It Up
    A Bosnian woman living in St. Louis who claimed she was attacked by three black teenagers because of her nationality is being charged with filing a false police report after video surveillance shows she made it all up. Seherzada Dzanic, a 26-year-old Bosnian immigrant, claimed she was attacked on Dec. 5 in the Bevo Mill neighborhood — a Bosnian section of St. Louis.

    Dzanic told police that at around 5:25 a.m., three black men in their late teens or early 20s attacked her while she was in her car. She said that one of the men pulled a gun on her and then pulled her out of the vehicle before throwing her to the ground, kicking her and stealing from her purse.“You’re a (expletive) liar,” the men said, Dzanic claimed. “You’re Bosnian. I should just kill you now.”
    A passing motorist found Dzanic lying in the street.When police arrived on the scene, Dzanic declined medical attention and said she had blacked out during the attack.

    But according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, surveillance video contained in court records showed Dzanic merely getting out of her car on the night in question and lying in the middle of the road. She admitted making up the story, claiming that she suffers from “emotional issues.” Dzanic’s claim came five days after a Bosnian man named Zemir Begic was beaten to death with a hammer by several black and Hispanic teenagers. Many believed that the hammer attack was motivated by race, though police have denied that Begic was the victim of a hate crime. The attack on Begic came several days after a St. Louis County grand jury’s decision in the racially-charged case involving a white Ferguson, Missouri police officer shooting Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old.“It doesn’t help the current climate when people use race as the basis to report crime; it further divides our community,” St. Louis police chief Sam Dotson said, according to the Post-Dispatch. Filing a false police report is a misdemeanor.


    http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/16/hoax-st-louis-woman-who-claimed-she-was-attacked-by-black-teens-made-it-up/

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    1. The above story was posted here because it contradicts an assertion I made earlier on the thread,

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    2. But it furthers you assertion about women being liars.

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    3. In other crime news, this is what happens when there are no good guys in a neighborhood watch program looking out for people dressed funny.

      http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/search-intensifies-for-gunman-who-killed-6/ar-BBgQjQF

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    4. In other made up journalism news, this is what happens when "youngish" offspring of professors
      find the "perfect" story and rush it into print.

      http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mohammed-islam-dupes-new-york-magazine

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  10. AnonymousDecember 16, 2014 at 11:32 AM -- This sounds like a case of PTSD. A friend of mine, a military veteran, has been working to inform people about the problem of PTSD and to get legislation that will lead to better recognition and treatment of the condition. Sadly, there are other tragedies like this.

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    1. This guy had multiple criminal convictions following his service. He should have been put in solitary. If only he had been a black teen!

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