She shopped with a knife sticking out of her back.

Great Debates
21

I recall when there was a major move to stop police from mentioning the race of a suspect in anything they did. That was around the time that the race spot on employment applications was removed. The police and others protested that action highly because calling out to others over a radio and saying that they were chasing a ‘man’ through a street or looking for a ‘man’ did not give a good enough description, even when describing clothing because crooks took to wearing different layers of cloths, to shed them to avoid capture.

The race indication had to remain.

The race indicator also is included in the CENSUS, in order to determine where various races choose to concentrate, which later determines various political decisions. It also allows medical people to better track race specific medical conditions. Plus, until such time in the future when we become a homogenous society, these concentrations will be used to track crime and determine the amount of law enforcement needed.

22

Drain, why didn’t you object to the fact that they mentioned she’s a woman, which I would think also is technically unnecessary to the story?

My opinion is that you are seeing some kind of racial prejudice that just simply isn’t there.

23

I have to agree with Cooper’s #2. Seriously, how many people would bother or even notice a woman with a handle of some kind out of her back…and if yeah did, why would you want to make a fool out of yourself by bringing it up? If it was a knife handle and she got stabbed she’d be screaming by now…or so you’d think. I’ve seen plenty of bag laddies push shopping carts and talk to walls and I doubt anyone has ever gone over and told them the bricks aren’t people.

24

Gender is not technically unnecessary to the story, as I believe most people would be more apt to help a woman than a man. Age is not technically unnecessary, as most people would be more likely to help an old person in that sort of trouble than a young person. This is because of the fact that women and old people tend to be physically weaker than men and younger people, thus bringing out protective urges in others (of course, whether or not this is justfied remains to be seen, but it is the case). However, there’s no reason for people to discriminate on the basis of race in determining whether or not to help a 60-year-old woman. So race is technically irrelevant to the overall shock Sentinel was expressing in the fact that nobody helped her.

Frankly, if this OP were posted by anyone else (except for maybe NITWATCH, Mark Serlin, AnitaJ, Rainbowcsr, or whatever other sock puppets fall under that heading), I might not have had too much of a problem with it, although I still would have brought it up. However, this poster has done similar things in the past that were somewhat more obviously racially biased, so I felt the need to make sure that the pattern was noticed, even though in this case it was more subtle than some of the others.

In my opinion as to the story at hand, if I see someone going about their daily routine with a knife sticking out of her shoulder, I don’t think “she needs help.” I think “lunatic.” I might alert store security, but I wouldn’t actually go near the person. I don’t know how that knife got there, and I want to make absolutely certain that it doesn’t end up in me.

25

Drain, I hope you see that which facts are important, and which are not, is a subtle and subjective call.

I also hope that you can also consider that judging people from their posts in previous threads may not be fair, or appropriate.

26

Sentinel, I have to take exception at your suggestion that this guy was wrong to not risk his own life to save a stranger’s. Had he seen a murder taking place and just shrugged and walked off, I too would be disgusted and appalled. But he didn’t - he did what a responsible citizen should have done and called the police - the people whose job it is to risk life and limb for strangers.

Could this man have done more? Maybe - but I don’t blame him for not doing so. You don’t know the full story; maybe he had a weak heart, maybe he was on chemotherapy treatments and was sickly, maybe he was slightly retarded and unable to control his own body well enough to beat off a knife-wielding assailant - or maybe he was perfectly healthy and just didn’t feel like risking death to help a complete stranger. Can you honestly blame him for this?

Besides, this killer was obviously not the enfeebled “old fart” you make him out to be. He was strong and quick enough to kill a prostitute - someone who by the very nature of her profession is ‘street-savvy.’ Who’s to say that this guy wouldn’t have become victim #2 had he tried to intervene? Who’s to say the attacker didn’t have a gun, too?

My point is that condemning this man for not risking his own life to save a stranger’s is a pretty low blow. Would I have done so? Yes. Would you have done so? Judging from your post, yes. Does that somehow make this guy obligated to do the same? No farking way.

This guy will probably spend the rest of his life wondering if he could have done more. He’ll go to his grave wondering if that old lady might have lived had he tried to take on the assailant himself rather than call for help. But that’s his cross to bear - not yours.

~ Complacency is far more dangerous than outrage ~

27

This all reminds me of a fairly disturbing short story by Harlan Ellison called “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs”. It describes an apartment complex full of people who watch out their windows as a woman is killed in the courtyard below. No one does a thing about it. Why? Because there are greater forces at work, and everyone has to look out for themselves.

Anyway, as to this particular scenario…
If I am in a grocery store and see something like this, I simply would not believe that the victim was unaware of the problem. In my mind, there would be no way someone would have a knife sticking out of them and not know about it. So I would not be too quick to rush to help, thinking that help was not necessary. However, curiosity might get the best of me.

“Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice that you have a steak knife sticking out of your neck. How did you come by that?”

“It is only out of sheer, morbid curiosity that I am allowing this freakshow to continue…”

28

I think Boogarrheal hit the nail on the head. After I stopped laughing I thought about it and what he said rings true and loud.

You see the woman with the disturbing knife in her back and think, “That is her punishment and her demon. Like Dante’s inner circles of hell she is suffering for her past wrongs.”

Then you start thinking, "Perhaps my suffering is visible to her. . .I wonder what manifestation my misery has solidified into? An axe through my head? Maggots over my left leg? A poisonous centipede suckling my genitals? It is all I can do to keep from screaming, yet she bears her punishment with pride and poise. I dare not verbalize this to her, lest she be deeply insulted and forced to feel shame and disgrace.

Thanks, Boogarrheal.

Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.

29

In case nobodies noticed it, one reason why people are reluctant to “help out” is the legal system we have! You now have to worry about being sued every time you touch someone else! I remember an incident in the 1980’s where a man saved a woman in a restaurant (she was choking on a piece of meat). He grabbed her and performed a heimlich maneuver, expelled the blockage, and saved her life-his reward?-he was sued by the woman’s lawyer, alleging pain and suffering? Bet he wished he just walked away!

30

SAKI, stay off of the herbal tea.

EGKELLY: You might have a point there that might affect a certain percentage of the population. Like why doctors are reluctant to stop and assist at most accidents anymore. I wonder if that lady won that case?

Still, there should be a high percentage of the population which would have gotten involved in some way of another. Could it be where the store was? They never mentioned that but I know that in some areas, like high crime, mixed ‘minorities’ and such, the local population becomes insular. Whereas in a Publix in a middle class area of low crime, people tend to be different.

I know a Winn Dixie in a ‘ghetto’ area where they have sealed one of the entrances, have armed guards in the store and a guard outside on a raised, lifeguard like platform watching over the parking lot. People in such stores have a tendency to have some different attitudes.

Still, I wonder though. We should not be so insular here in the States. I’ve meandered through Mexico and there, thugs do taxi-grabs, where two guys will rip open the doors of a taxi carrying rich ‘gringos’ right on the street, hop in, beat, or stab and rob them while the driver ignores it and people walk by on the sidewalks.

In New York City, people walk over the bodies of those laying on the sidewalk with little concern as to whether they’re just drunk, ill or dead.

Are we becoming too insular, too isolated within our own little worlds, afraid to take the risk to become involved?

When a neighborhood I lived in was being burgled at night, and I was up in the wee hours, getting off work at 12, I went outside to check on things and eventually spotted the little bastard and chased him two blocks into the woods before calling the cops. He never came back.

I was in an all night little convenience store when two guys came in acting suspicious as hell around 2 am and there was only the counter girl there so I hung around until I was sure they were going to rob the place, slipped out to the phone and called the cops and remained inside until they arrived and rousted the two thugs out. They agreed that the two, who had criminal records, were going to rob the place if I had left.

Sometimes, you gotta get involved if you want to sleep at night.

31

Well if I saw a woman walking around with a knife sticking out of her and she was just going about her business I would think
A: She is doing it as a joke and I wont bother with her
B: She is a complete wacko and I want to stay as far away as possible from her just in case she chooses to take the knife out of her and stick in me.

Keep smiling it makes 'em wonder what you’ve been up to.

32

Depends what state you’re in. In Wisconsin, ch. 895.48, the “good samaritan” statute, protects from civil liability anyone who stops to render assistance at the scene of an emergency. The only exception is for gross negligence.

33

ottos right . . i might add in certified red cross first aid class i was told the same thing . . in case the moral issue arose. previous posters have said also that they scramble around the grocery store and are focused on their lists, negotiating around the aisle hoggers and just getting the hell outa there. thats the way i am. her daughter did the instinctive thing by pulling out the knife . . fortunately it wasnt a fatal mistake. if someones been stabbed/impaled; and not bleeding, you dont remove the object we were also taught.

34

it was also 7am . . few people around in the store to maybe notice it.

35

I don’t know if I agree with the mass ‘I-didn’t-notice-it’ type of response. I know I notice a lot of things about people in stores and kids especially notice EVERYTHING about others. (I’ve been shopping with a friends 9 year old kid and he noticed all sorts of stuff about the other shoppers.)

Then you’ve got to think about A: her arrival, which, I assume, was by walking and B: her departure, which I assume was by the same way. People on the street didn’t notice or if they did, they didn’t say anything.

I wonder if the cops got a set of prints off of the knife handle? (That must have surprised the stabber. He strikes out for whatever reason – and the target just trundles on off – ignoring him and taking his knife with her.)

Then you have to consider what the lady herself said, which indicates her environment. She just thought she had been punched. She was not concerned about it, or why or even upset. She just went on ahead and went shopping. In my town, if a lady gets punched on the street, she’ll call the cops, want to know who and why and probably start screaming for help.

Did anyone who saw the clip get the name of the city?

36

Wow, it just seems like the OP was describing who the lady was. There was no special attention given to it. So what if he mentioned her race? Her gender? Her age?
What do you want people to say, Drain?
“Person, stabbed, no help.”
How fuckin’ boring! How insipid to think that it is unnecessary or irrelevant to mention things like age, sex, gender, and even race.

I elect to think that the reason she is white was mentioned was to head off folks who might say shit like
“It’s because (insert ethnicity here) that no one helped her. If she had been white, she would’ve gotten help.”
People that are so touchy about race, today, are the very people who are propagating what has no place in society.

Lot’s of people I know seem to have this big ass chip on their shoulder about being (insert ethnicity here) or (insert gender here). IMHO, if they stopped making such a big deal out of it, then so would a lot of other people.
I have been confronted with the ugly face of racism before, and have managed to overcome it. Does this mean that every time someone says “Hey, wanna get some taco bell? That sounds good,” I immediately respond with “Whatchyoo mean by that, ese?”

The first time I got a performance review at work by my (is it okay to mention race/gender here, Drain? It is directly relevant to the story.) white-female boss, I got a bad one. Did I scream discrimination? No. Why? Because it was an honest, fair eval and I needed to improve.

Give it a rest, lady. If you need a cross to bear because you’re so freakin’ bored you need to make up shit to bitch about then join Greenpeace so you can see how people with real problems get along.

Finally, please realize that overall I respect what you have to say, Drain. I don’t mean any disrespect. I am just voicing my opinion, and I hope we can differ without rancor. If I was out-of-line with any of the above as it may have been construed as a personal attack, let me apologize. I didn’t mean it that way.

“Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.”

37

She probably works in publishing—we get stabbed in the back so often, she no doubt didn’t even notice it.