Do I Offend?
A mea culpa on mask-wearing outside and a reminder that policing in America is very difficult.
Tomorrow at noon, I will be holding my first Zoom chat with pollster and T&C contributor Jeremy Rosner. It is, however, a subscriber-only event, so if you’re still on the fence about becoming a paid subscriber, hopefully, this will put you over the top! I’ll be sending a reminder and Zoom link tomorrow morning for subscribers.
Mea Culpa
On Monday, I wrote a column in which I said I was no longer going to wear a mask outside. Boy, did it piss some folks off. More than a dozen people unsubscribed from the newsletter, and I got a bunch of angry emails, like this one:
“This column is ridiculously self-absorbed, adolescent diatribe. If you don't want to wear a mask outdoors, fine. But, why on earth, do you care if other people still chose, for whatever reason, to wear one? Because you are tired of looking at masks? Because you have decided your path to return to normal is somehow impeded if someone else wears a mask? You are displaying the same narrow-minded judgmental thinking you like to mock in others.”
Another reader complained that I was demonstrating a New York-centric view of the issue.
“I do think unintentional harm can come from applying what may make sense for you in NYC elsewhere.
I am pretty impatient with political theatre and appreciate how in a more Liberal bastion that may be a lot of what you’re dealing with.
Less for many of us in the hinterlands.”
The comments on Twitter were even harsher, with some asking why don’t I be patient for a few more weeks. I take this type of criticism seriously, and it made me reflect on my argument.
I take the point that in places where fewer people are vaccinated - and vaccine hesitancy is more of an issue - the need for mask-wearing is theoretically greater. With so much opposition to mask-wearing in various parts of the country, modeling such behavior, even outside, would seem to be crucial. But, honestly, I’m a bit skeptical of this argument. I’ve talked to plenty of friends around the country, including places where COVID rates are low, who tell me that many people wear masks inside while eschewing the practice outside. I don’t know that there’s much evidence that forcing people to wear masks outside convinces them to wear them inside. If anything, I can imagine it having the opposite effect - frustrating people with a rule that makes little scientific sense. Also, New York has one of the higher population densities in the country, so one would think that mask-wearing outside is more of an issue here than in places where you’re less likely to come in contact with strangers on the sidewalk.
As for the notion that I am lecturing people on wearing masks and that I want others to step covering their faces, I went out of my way in the piece to say that if people want to keep wearing masks, that’s their right, and I’m not telling them what to do. But the more I thought about it, the more I think there’s a kernel of truth here. I do want people to stop wearing masks because, for me, it would signal a return to normalcy. Also, once I convince myself that I’m right about something, I tend to think everyone should see things my way (somewhere my mother is nodding her head and smiling). So, while I stand by my argument that outdoor mask-wearing is no longer necessary and I don’t want to do it anymore, if I’m completely honest, it is coming from a place of judgment about the behavior of others.
I thought this point from David Leonhardt about outdoor mask-wearing was spot on.
“I understand why many people will continue to exercise more caution than the data suggests is necessary (and, to be clear, caution with children is vital until more adults have had the chance to get a vaccine). Covid has been horrible, arguably worse than any other infectious disease in living memory, and it is not over. ‘We’ve been so traumatized by all of this,’ Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale epidemiologist, told Tara Parker-Pope. ‘I think we need to have a little bit of compassion for the people having trouble letting go.’
Compassion is a good concept. At this stage in the pandemic, different people are going to start making different decisions, and many of those decisions will be defensible. Before lashing out at behavior that is different from your own, maybe it’s worth pausing to ask whether compassion is the better response.”
The past year has been so profoundly traumatic for all of us, but what I need - a return to the way things used to be - is not what other people might need. I found out in May 2020 that I had COVID-19 the previous March, which made me much less anxious about getting it. But there are plenty of people who have been living in anxiety about getting sick for much of the past year. I failed to take into account their feelings. That was a mistake.
Lastly, I should add that this newsletter is called Truth and Consequences for a reason. I believe in making honest, evidence-based arguments and not simply catering to my reader’s ideological priors. I hope that’s why you subscribe and read my columns! I will keep doing that with the understanding that I’m going to write things that will piss people off and even cause them to unsubscribe to this newsletter. From a financial standpoint, that’s a challenging position to put myself in, but I genuinely don’t know how to do this job any other way. If I didn’t write what I believe, I would be doing a disservice to you, my readers. I hope you agree!
What Do We Want From The Police?
Right on cue, I suspect that my next argument is going to piss some people off!
Last week, in Columbus, Ohio, a White police officer shot and killed 16-year old Ma’Khia Bryant, a Black girl. The shooting occurred just twenty minutes before the announcement of the guilty verdict in the Derek Chauvin case, and for many, the symbolism was too much to bear. Here is a white police officer being held accountable for murdering a Black man, and yet the police killing of Black Americans continues unabated.
But as we found out more about the shooting, the narrative became a bit more complicated. Bodycam footage released by the Columbus police department showed that the officer, Nicholas Reardon, arrived on the scene after police had received a 911 call about a domestic disturbance. As Reardon gets out of his car, a young woman is thrown to the ground by Bryant, who is wielding a knife. Bryant then turns to a young girl, dressed in a pink jumpsuit, and rears back to stab her. Reardon shouts “get down” and then fires four shots and kills Bryant. If you want to watch the whole video, you can see it here (it is graphic and disturbing, so I’m not going to post it). But this is the most relevant screengrab.
This shooting, like practically every police shooting, is a tragedy. It’s made far worse by the fact that the victim is a 16-year old girl. I understand the emotion that these kinds of incidents evoke and that my perspective as a white Jewish man is very different from that of a person of color. But, if ever there is a situation in which a police officer's use of deadly force is warranted, it would seemingly be this incident.
The image above is unmistakable: Bryant is holding a knife and preparing to stab a girl and potentially kill her. Keep in mind, this all unfolded within approximately 10 seconds of Reardon jumping out of the car. The option to tackle Bryant or intercede in some other way would have been incredibly difficult, if not impossible. The distance was too far to use a Taser, and there’s no guarantee it would have worked. When faced with making a split-second decision, Reardon chose to use force to save a life - and I struggle to see how he did not make the right call under the circumstances, as horrible as the outcome might have been. But drawing that conclusion leads us to a dark place: justifying the shooting death of a 16-year old girl.
Yet, not surprisingly, the emotion around this shooting led to a predictable set of reactions.
I understand full well that Twitter is not real life - and one should not draw too many conclusions from 280 characters of thought. But these sentiments are ones I’ve heard echoed elsewhere. Why didn’t the officer tell Bryant he had a gun? Why didn’t he try a non-lethal intervention? Why didn’t he aim to wound? Why fire four shots? It’s easy to second guess - and these points are not without merit. Maybe police officers should be trained to wound in a situation like this. Perhaps they shouldn’t fire so many shots. Still, it’s essential to keep in mind that Bryant’s actions left Reardon with few choices, and he very possibly saved the life of a Black girl by doing what he did. If Americans don’t want the police to use force in a situation in which someone is attempting to murder another person, when do they want them to use force? Maybe the answer for some is never, but I think most people — if their loved one were potentially on the receiving end of that knife — would want the police to act.
The discussion about this police shooting is what has made national debates on policing so frustrating. They have, like everything else in our society, become distorted by polarization and groupthink.
So much of the national conversation about policing is black and white - with either knee-jerk defenses of the police from the right or a general disdain for all police from the left. But the reality is that most policing exists in shades of gray that have little connection to the slogans that have come to replace thoughtful and constructive debate. As Rosa Brooks pointed out in her book on becoming a police officer, most cops are professional, join the force because they want to do good, and are not horrible racists intent on killing Black people. That doesn’t mean that they don’t operate in a system defined by institutional and systematic racism. They do
Critics from the left are right to point out bad policing. They are also right to point out that Black Americans are disproportionately harassed, arrested, and killed by the police. These are facts that should be repeated over and over again. The murder of George Floyd was a wake-up call to millions of white Americans that their experience with the police is quite different than that of Black Americans. They need to be reminded of that reality constantly.
But police critics also have a responsibility to recognize not just good policing but hard policing. Acknowledging shades of gray and the complexity of modern policing is essential. There needs to be a greater recognition that being a police officer is incredibly difficult, that there is a whole world of policing not captured on iPhone videos, that officers are given far too many responsibilities with too few resources, and that they are often forced to make decisions that don’t fit into a narrow good or bad binary. It’s very easy to condemn Reardon for shooting Ma’Khia Bryant. It’s more helpful to acknowledge that there are no easy answers to a tragedy like this.
What I’m Reading
Great piece by Steven Cook on ending the “End The Forever War Cliche.”
Languishing is a good descriptor for what so many of us are feeling these days.
This New York Times investigation of sexual assault allegations against Blake Bailey, who recently published a biography of Philip Roth, is a jaw-dropping read.
Gender reveal parties are literally killing people. Maybe it’s time to stop having them.
Senate Republicans reject the practice of earmarks, which will make a bipartisan infrastructure bill that much more challenging to achieve.
Musical Interlude
Those of you of a certain age will recognize the “Pretty in Pink” reference in the headline and top photograph of today’s newsletter. So here’s the Psychedelic Furs song of the same name.
Though truth be told, “If You Leave” by OMD is the best song on the soundtrack.
I wonder how many of the people upset about your stance on masks outdoors admonish others to “believe the science”. Because the science has been crystal clear almost since the beginning: Outdoor transmission is infinitesimally small.
Yet, we are to allow others’ perceptions to supersede reality out of fear, a persistent theme over the last ten years or so. We have to stop this kowtowing somewhere, and something as material as a virus seems like a good place to start.
Honestly, it was astonishing and infuriating to read, "I am also willing to take the risk that there’s an infinitesimal chance of me infecting someone else with COVID-19. If you think that makes me sound selfish - fine." Yes, it made you sound selfish to this person for whom a COVID-19 infection comes with a 1-in-10 or greater chance of dying. It was on my to-do list to unsubscribe, but I appreciate that you're publicly grappling with the "consequences" side of the equation — pretty rare in opinion journalism. Still here for now.