So writes a lady in Missouri to the NYT "Ethicist" columnist, Kwame Anthony Appiah.
I think we all know the answer to the question, and Appiah has many sentences, but 3 of them give the answer that must be given:
You chose to buy a house in a neighborhood with a homeowners’ association, which is, in effect, a hyperlocal government. You have a voice in it — a voice that can be amplified by suasion — but so do your neighbors. You can’t simply withdraw from it or renegotiate its terms by yourself.
Another answer, prominent in the comments over there, is: MOVE!
But what's the point in that? The woman doesn't like what's being done, but it's not being done to her. If she leaves, she'll have no voice at all, and it's even less likely that the change in behavior she wants will occur.
And yet she does continue to enjoy the extra crime control her neighborhood has bought for itself. Does she need to move to give up that benefit — move somewhere more out of control, put her personal safety on the line? Or is it enough that she has put her distaste for her own privilege into words and gotten those words published in The New York Times?
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9 comments:
Brian writes:
Seems like her real concern is that:
'there is broad agreement among Black community leaders that the department has a race problem.'
Whether the Police work off duty in her idyllic community , or not; won't change how the Police Dept is seen by the 'Black community leaders'. She should be working to either
a) get her Police Dept to fix their 'race problem'
b) get 'Black community leaders' to change their perception
c) work on HER perception (is there REALLY a broad agreement among 'Black community leaders'? Not saying that there Is, or Isn't; just saying that a rich white woman, living with private security, might not Really See how things are.
Michael writes:
"I think the most interesting question about this lady’s letter is actually, “What is her letter supposed to accomplish?” On the one hand, you might think that she is writing to the New York Times (not the first thing that I do every morning) in order to give a larger audience to her concerns about the practice of essentially private policing. Presumably her neighbors read the Times, after all, and who knows how many other HOAs are out there committing the same sort of potential malfeasance? (I should qualify, however, that merely because a department purportedly has a “race problem” does not mean that the members who make themselves available to the HOA for additional work do as well; that would seem to be judging with a rather broad ‘brush’.)
"And if you’re really a believer in defunding the police, doesn’t that mean defunding the POLICE OFFICERS, too? You don’t want them to have additional ways to make a living, after all.
"But unfortunately the public mewling of the last 8 years or so have put me in a mindset where the first thing I hear when I read this is virtue-signaling. I think it’s easily just as likely that she likes her private police force, that she likes where she lives, and that the letter is just a way for her to express her “I’m a good person” bona fides on the cheap.
"I don’t even think it’s really about the dues. My experience as someone who lives in a mostly-white, very safe neighborhood that DOESN’T hire private police, but who works as an attorney for people who do live in such neighborhoods, is that anyone who lives in such a neighborhood already knows the answer to this question, which makes me even more suspicious that this is purely self-regarding and (supposedly) self-lauding speech."
Joe writes:
Did she ever think that her home price would plummet without the extra security?
Our neighborhood is 40 miles from a crime-infested, shithole city. But where we live is bucolic; oak trees, turkeys and deer on the hills, hiking trails, etc. With enough money, anyone can live here. Nobody cares what color you are. The country clubs (there are a few) have no membership restrictions, and many members are successful black families. If you can afford it, you're welcomed with open arms.
But just yesterday there was an incident where an elderly man and his caretaker were followed home from a pharmacy and robbed by two men at gunpoint in the middle of the day. This was in a neighborhood where the cheapest tear-down is $2M.
Six months ago a man was wandering around near the freeway waving a knife at people until police shot and killed him. Of course, one of the usual 'civil rights' attorneys immediately jumped on TV and is now going after my town on behalf of the family.
There are gates for the neighborhood across the street and one a mile down the street. We aren't 'gate people' so we chose not to live in those places. But if things keep going the way they are, I'm sure our HOA will be exploring the feasibility and expense of gating our entrance.
My dream home would be on acreage and I'd be happy to take care of security myself, but since we are where we are now, I will do what's needed so that my wife can go for her morning walk in peace.
Assistant Village Idiot writes:
"'...broad agreement among Black community leaders that the department has a race problem."
"That doesn't make it true. I am always suspicious of things that people "just know" that don't have any numbers with them, not only on racial issues, but on everything. It is another CS Lewis lesson that these are precisely the areas that are most likely convenient beliefs rather than supported ones."
I'll add:
And The Ethicist advises the letter writer to take the black community leaders' word for it. From the article: "If responsible Black leaders in your city say that the local police have a problem in their relations with Black people, I wouldn’t be inclined to second-guess them. A recent survey of African American adults found that 50 percent reported being discriminated against in police interactions."
Temujin writes:
"I flew in from Seattle last night. While there, I noted homeless encampments in various parts of town, including a large one that took over a park that my grandkids have to walk through to get to school this coming school year. The City seems perplexed as to what to do: Do what's best for the kids and parents- the taxpayers, or do what's best for the homeless- addicts, mentally disturbed, and lifestylers? Seems a simple clear-cut decision, but they are clearly befuddled by it in Seattle.
"This is the same mindset shown by the guilt-ridden woman in Missouri. It is the inability to look at the situation and understand that: crime- no good. No crime- good. Hiring extra security for the neighborhood, if it's come to that, is a necessary step to maintaining your safety. Your. Own. Safety. As well as your kids, neighbors, your home value. These are not evil things. These are the real and important things in your life. It's why you went to school, to be able to earn a living, create a life. If you're so guilty of your own being that you are ready to defer your own safety, your own life, for the sake of what you think is a proper cause- in this case, counting skin color on police- have at it. Move to Seattle or San Francisco, Chicago or Portland, LA or Baltimore, Detroit or New Orleans. Or...just move down the street from you to St. Louis. There you can feel better about yourself and how you must appear to others, as you sit crouched in a fetal position in your own home.
"Pure insanity.
"Two other things;
""... even though there is broad agreement among Black community leaders that the department has a race problem." There is so much wrong with that statement. Who took that poll? What broad agreement? Who are the 'so-called' leaders of the Black community? It's like newspapers quoting anonymous sources. Do the rank and file people within the Black community look to these 'so-called' leaders as their leaders? Are they OK with crime in their neighborhoods and do they really care more about the color of the officer's skin color or the fact that there are enough police to help them be safe?
"Lastly, who knew The New York Times had an Ethicist columnist? I wonder if he's had anything to say about the NY Times taking huge sums of money from the Communist Chinese government in return for covering up the Wuhan lab leak stories. And in fact, writing stories that denounced those who pointed to the Wuhan Lab as the source of the breakout, as crazy fringe characters, while maintaining that pangolin were the culprit."
Pat writes:
"On the one hand, there are lots of laws that people disagree with and yet may benefit from. I regard social security as an unconstitutional ponzi scheme and would vote to end it if it ever was on the ballot. Yet, I also collect social security because I have been forced to contribute to it all my working life and I want to get my money back. I don't think that is unethical.
"On the other hand there are lots of virtue signaling twits who impose, or advocate imposing laws or policies on other people but not on themselves. So, when Warren Buffet claims he is not taxed enough and therefore I should be taxed more, I get pretty grumpy. If Buffet really believed that, he could write a check to the US Treasury. They will cash it. I have seen it done!
"(in case anyone questions my logic as to whether Buffet would be affected by a general increase in taxes for his bracket, remember his "salary" is actually fairly moderate. Yes, he would pay a few bucks more but the billions of dollars he has in his investments will be largely untouched and available for his use, should he need them. And he has an army of tax lawyers and accountants to see that this is case. But other people would see their taxes on income go up and significant reductions in their "take home" pay.)
"As the NYT ethicist points out you can't unilaterally withdraw from a contract and still get the benefits of the contract. Therefore, she is free to try to convince her neighbors to do without additional police protection while she continues to live there, and I do not think that is unethical. She is free to move if she wishes, but I don't think ethics requires this. Although, I have to ask: did it ever occur to her the reason that her neighborhood is "low crime" might have something to do with the additional police?
"However, a key question for me is whether this person has advocated for defunding the police in other jurisdictions (as opposed to, say, better oversight, discipline and training for the police), at least potentially putting other people at risk. If so, I think it is hypocritical and unethical to live in a neighborhood that is so well protected. She should move to a "normal" neighborhood and assume the risks she advocates for others. Or perhaps reconsider her position!
"PS: This goes double for people who advocate defunding the police (or disarming legal gun owners) but who have armed bodyguards, whether they are government provided or privately paid for. And if someone thinks socialism is such a good idea, they should join a commune and leave the rest of us alone. Ditto, “green” policies and private jets and/or a collection of houses that have the carbon footprint of a small country."
Tom writes:
"The great tragedy of life is that we can never fully realize all of our values equally. We have to choose. She has conflicting values that must be sorted. She values social justice and blames the police. She values the home she bought. She may or may not value the sanctity of the contract she has with the HOA - but probably values the penalty she faces if she violates that contract. Ultimately, she has to choose if she values social justice enough to either convince others in the HOA to see her way and change -or- to move to a place more aligned with her values. Her choice will, ultimately, uncover her real values and I hope it resolves in a way she can live with. For me, I will choose free will."
Washington Blogger:
"When I was in my teens, I would purloin copies of adult magazines whenever I could. No internet back then. One such magazine had a letters section Penthouse letters. As I got older it occured to me that these letters were not real submissions but written by the same editor that answered them.
"I wonder if it is ethical for the ethics editor to answer his own letters?"
JamesL writes:
Natalie Angier writing about Edward O. Wilson (possibly better known as E. O. Wilson) writing in Smithsonian Magazine, April 2012 …
Edward O. Wilson’s New Take on Human Nature
"Wilson also traces what he considers the tragedy of the human condition to the private struggle of us versus me. He sees us as a kind of mixed economy, the complicated fruit of a sharply disputed process known as multilevel selection. By this reckoning, some of our impulses are the result of individual selection, the competition of you against everybody else for a share of life’s goodies. Other traits are under the sway of group selection, prompting us to behave altruistically for the sake of the team. It appears our individually selected traits are older and more primal, harder to constrain, the ones we traditionally label vices: greed, sloth and lust, the way we covet our neighbor’s life and paper over our failings with pride. Our eusocial inclinations are evolutionarily newer and more fragile and must be vociferously promoted by the group if the group is to survive. They are the stuff of religions and Ben Franklin homilies and represent the virtues we admire: to be generous, kind and levelheaded, to control our impulses, keep our promises and rise to the occasion even when we are scared or disheartened. “The human condition is an endemic turmoil rooted in the evolution processes that created us,” he writes. “The worst in our nature coexists with the best, and so it will ever be.”"
LINK
“For the sake of the team … “ What team would that be? There are so many.
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