Kitty Genovese is the name of the woman who was murdered on March 13, 1964, in daylight, on a New York City street. She screamed for help for long minutes, but help never came. The incident became national news. It is disputed as to whether witnesses could have helped, but police were, in fact, called. They did not respond in time to save Ms. Genovese’s life. There was no 911 system in place at the time.
Fast-forward sixty years. “Amelia Carter” was falsely reported as the name of the woman who was murdered on a New York City subway on December 22, burned alive. The police (as I write this) have not released her real name. The case is infamous for the unspeakable depravity of the killer, but also, according to some reports, for the depravity of onlookers who reportedly stood by and did not attempt to save her life as she burned to death. The police response was initially and shockingly inept, and the killer very nearly got away.
During the nearly sixty years between the deaths of “Carter” and Genovese, many heinous murders were committed in America’s largest cities. Large cities have long been accused of being populated by citizens coldly indifferent to one another. I first became aware of this personally when, in 1961, my family moved from a small Southern town to a city near New York.
I noticed the contrast almost immediately. I was walking along a northern city sidewalk when I encountered an elderly man walking the other way. Not wishing to be rude or disrespectful, I said something like, “Howdy, sir.” He stopped and glared at me. “Do I know you?” he demanded to know. “No, sir, I don’t believe so.” He responded irately, almost shouting, with words like, “Then why did you speak to me?”
I was dumbfounded, but eventually I got somewhat used to that environment.
In small-town America, it was the custom to tip one’s hat, or to speak a polite greeting under such circumstances. It was rude not to. If someone was injured in a mishap, everyone nearby ran to help. In the big city, people often ran to rob the helpless victim.
Of course, many urban dwellers are not like that at all, and some small-town folk are criminals, but I have many anecdotes that portray the big city unfavorably. Here in the South, we get a lot of people moving here, or visiting, from “up north,” and I can detect in many of them that sneering condescension for us “hayseeds,” along with their caustic attitude toward anyone in their path. Some of them seem unsure how to react to Southern courtesies, perhaps suspecting that anyone being nice to them has a sinister motive — which, up north, they often did.
During a brief visit to NYC, I was waiting in line to make a purchase when the woman in front of me accidentally dropped a nickel — yes, a nickel. I reflexively stooped and picked it up. As I moved to stand up again, I noticed that she had a look of horror on her face. She must have brought only exact change to the store, and now she assumed I was going to steal that nickel. When I proffered it to her, she looked confused for a moment. Then she quickly grabbed the coin and, without a word, turned her back to me, paid for her purchase, and promptly walked out the door. I would like to say that by then, I had gotten used to that sort of thing, but I guess we hayseeds never really do.
Such anecdotes are familiar to many people, but the lesson in them may go unnoticed. Humans are not designed to live like that, crowded into streets where they know no one and care for no one. Even though big city life has been part of society since ancient times, our nature has not yet adjusted to it. We have difficulty with it. We have lost our tribal instinct; our sense of community and compassion for one another has been diminished. True, tribal instincts regard outsiders as invaders, but in the asphalt jungle, everyone is a potential enemy.
Alas, I don’t have an answer. It will take more wisdom than mine to find one. We can start, however, by bringing back the small-town community church.
Ironically, my final anecdote is about some northerners I met one Sunday. They complained that when they had attended a local church service, everyone in the small congregation wanted to shake hands, greet them, and for heaven’s sake, even asked their names.
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