COMMENTARY ON SOCIETY'S DOUBLE STANDARDS!

COMMENTARY

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
Sunday, November 27, 2005

Note: What follows is my response to Joseph H. Brown’s column in the Sunday edition of The Tampa Tribune. Mr. Brown is an editorial writer for this paper, whom I have come to respect, and with whom I often correspond. His Sunday columns are always though provoking, reasonable and reasoning. He looks at various issues in the community and comments on them, while sometimes extending these assessments to the wider national community, especially as it might relate to African Americans and their challenges. We have never met but have some dots that connect us. He is a Midwesterner, reared in Chicago, but is an alumnus of the University of Iowa as I am as well. Although he is black and I am white, I often find his comments as relevant to me as to African Americans because we share a common culture. Many years ago, while calling on a client in Jamaica, a black physical chemist trained at the California Institute of Technology, he made a comment that resonated with me, “Real differences in people are not a matter of color but of culture.” I have always believed that to be true even when the evidence suggest some contradictions to that assessment.

In the present column to which I make reference, titled “Lady Justice Smiles On Debra Lafave.” She is the young lady that recently was given a sentence of house arrest and community service when, by law, she could have been sentenced to serve many years in prison for having an affair with a teenage boy. The mother of the boy wanted the matter to be done with, and not to have her son exposed to a national tabloid assassination.

Mr. Brown’s article, however, focused on the double standard of justice for men and women when it comes to sex with teenagers in their charge.

But that is not what prompted my response to Mr. Brown. It was this comment by him:

“What did disturb me about this case was the observation by a psychiatrist on one of the local morning shows: if she had been an ugly woman, she would be going to jail.”

Mr. Brown continues: “For years I’ve believed that the symbol of our criminal justice system – a blindfolded woman holding scales to be unbalanced by evidence – was outdated, if in fact it ever was realistic. Most Americans would agree that race, social status and wealth can radically tip the scales of justice.”

I wanted to confirm, in fact, corroborate his suspicion with regard to justice, but even in a broader context. So, I wrote the following:

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Joseph,

The most poignant comment in your column today was your reference to crime and justice being influenced by the "good looks" of the defendant.

There is precedence for this in psychology and psychiatry. Both have been shown by studies to (a) be more apt to see the client making a full recovery; and (b) to insist on a somewhat protracted therapy and counseling to that end.

Conversely, ugly people were shown to be regarded as much less likely to respond positively to therapy, and psychologists and psychiatrists were more apt to discourage continuing sessions with them.

Similarly, in industry, it has been my experience that not only were we more apt to hire good looking people of lesser qualifications than uglier applicants, we were even more likely to promote them, not so much on the merits of their actual achievements as to the fact of their physical appearance. Obviously, an elaborate rationale justifying such hiring and promoting has been sophisticated to an art form if not a pseudo science.

I once remarked to a fellow director when I worked for Honeywell Europe that there wasn't a single director under six feet of height, and although men are not routinely known to be good at gauging handsomest, the grooming of these people clearly stood out compared to their direct reports. It was as if everyone subscribed to “Gentlemen’s Quarterly.” He looked at me quite astounded, he a handsome man of six-three, trim and athletic, "Why does that surprise you? It's as it should be."

But should it? There once was a US senator who was quite brilliant by the name of Frank Church, who was discouraged from running for the presidency of the United States by his party promoters "because his face was too round." Senator Church suffered the photogenic anomaly of a trim body and a fat countenance.

In my writing, I've referred to our cosmetic culture, which supports cosmetic interventions, which in turn inevitably produces cosmetic results, and then we wonders why the problems that haunt us are never solved.

Subjectivity is natural to man, but it is a little disingenuous when man flaunts objectivity in the face of this narcissistic subjectivity, only to then wonder why justice is seldom served.

Debra LaFave, the person you refer to in your column, is indeed lucky. She got off without prison time for having an affair with a 14-year-old student, but that is not my point.

My point is that a definitive pattern has been established in our culture. She would seem simply representative of it. Viewing her on television, she looks more like a porcelain doll than a flesh and blood person. She seems to have perfect skin, perfect make-up, not a hair out of place, and the precise smile and movement of, well, a mechanical wind up doll. With all due respect, she may be a nice young lady with confused priorities, but from a distance she appears the epitome of our wind up mechanical culture carried to its arbitrary and self-deceiving perfection.

The same could be said of that young lady that accidentally killed those two young black boys, and then fled the scene of the crime with the support of her parents in the cover up, claiming, "she feared for her life" because it was a black neighborhood, as if blackness was an ominous threat.

Recently, we learned of a young black man, about her same age, who accidentally killed a person with his van. He attempted to go to the aid of the person injured. Unfortunate for him, he came from the islands, was an immigrant with no prison record, and no extended support system, and so was sentenced to a large term prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter. The press gave him little space or sympathy, and now he languishes in prison wondering at his fate.

O. J. Simpson got off allegedly murdering his wife and a young man who came to return her sunglasses left at the restaurant. A clever defense is offered as reason for his acquittal, but I don’t think it hurt that he had movie star good look and sport hero credentials.

Shelby Steele wrote a wonderful book, "The Content of Our Character," with his point being that whites are apt to see color before character. But the book’s premise, written by an African American, is just as likely to apply to whites seeing appearance before character as well.

It saddened me, but did not surprise me, when Moslem men in France, who were born into that culture, assimilated that culture, spoke the French language with a lilt and beauty as moving as any Frenchmen complained, "We are French, but when we go for a job, we are not Frenchmen; when we go to the police to complain of harassment, we are not Frenchman. Then we are Moslems.” Why are Frenchmen surprised at the recent riots among this population? There is only so much humans can take, any humans, before spontaneous human combustion occurs.

Would jail time be good for Debra LaFavre? I don't think so. It is not good for most people, but too often a training ground in hate and violence.

We take such pride in our technological advancement, but we remain primitives when it comes to culture.

As always, I enjoy your insights and humanity. Always be well,
Jim