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Let’s Have Sensitivity for the "Insensitive"

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5/02/00 6:45 p.m.
Let’s Have Sensitivity for the "Insensitive"
Are they victimizers — or victims?

By Lowell Ponte, national host, Talk Radio Network &
columnist, FrontPageMag.com

portscasters and athletes — Atlanta Braves relief pitcher John Rocker is the most notorious recent example — have been penalized or fired for "insensitive" remarks about minorities. A new scientific study offers evidence that they may themselves be victims of a natural mental disability, and of our insensitivity. They might deserve compensation for the wrong done to them.

Older adults, in particular, may "lose their inhibitory ability" and find it "difficult to disregard their own stereotypical or prejudicial thoughts." According to William von Hippel, associate professor of psychology at Ohio State University in Columbus, and his co-authors of this study, those 65 and older seem more prejudiced, more Archie Bunker-like, not only because they grew up in a more discriminatory era but also because their aging brains are not as quick to "stifle" politically incorrect thoughts and expressions as those regimented by our more "sensitive" era.

In this study, young and old people were asked to read a story about a student athlete named Jamal and an honors student named John, and then were asked to make assumptions about both. This might have revealed an all-jocks-are-dumb bias, and this implicitly racist story stereotypes people with "Black" names as athletes, not honor students. But the researchers conclude that older people were more likely to show the "modern form" of racism toward African Americans — which these researchers define as "resentment toward unfair advantages that Blacks supposedly get in our society."

"We should be more understanding, because it is harder for older people to be non-prejudiced," says von Hippel. "But that doesn’t let them off the hook. By no means are we saying that they have to act in a discriminatory manner or that they have absolutely no control over what they say or do."

That "hook" in recent times has been quite sharp, and for some careers fatal. With this new evidence that expressions of prejudice might have a physiological cause, we ought to re-think our treatment of victims of this newly-recognized disability. It might in some cases mean that those charged with "hate crimes" are manifesting symptoms of mental disinhibition.

Do we punish victims of Tourette’s syndrome, one symptom of which is uncontrollable outbursts of "coprolalia," potty-mouth language and obscene outbursts? (Was this what caused President Clinton’s storm-troopers to scream the vilest obscenities as they deliberately maced and beat the NBC pool camera-crew and threatened to shoot Elian Gonzalez’s family in Miami?) If Tourette’s syndrome is a recognized medical condition, how long until we show compassion for victims of this other malady that causes "verbal incontinence?"

Longtime L.A. Dodgers general manager Al Campanis was 70 in 1987 when, in a national television interview, he made the career-ending, shocking statement that Blacks "might not have all the necessities" to be a field manager or a general manager.

Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder was fired as a CBS football analyst at age 68 in 1988 for telling a Washington, D.C., television interviewer that so many Blacks were successful in sports because "the slave owner would breed his big black with his big woman so that he would have a big black kid. That’s where it all started."

Retiring Green Bay Packer Reggie White in 1998 declared that Jimmy "The Greek" was correct, that "bigger slaves were pretty much used as studs," and made a speech to the Wisconsin Legislature filled with politically incorrect racial and sexual stereotypes. This insensitive speech cost the African-American football superstar an analyst’s job at CBS Sports and lucrative endorsement deals with Campbell Soup and Nike shoes.

Reggie White, then 36, was not an "older" person as defined by the Ohio State researchers. But Prof. von Hippel notes that factors other than aging can cause reduced "inhibitory ability" to control prejudice in the brain. This varies widely from one individual to another, perhaps owing to genetic differences. Alcohol and exhaustion can also reduce "inhibition" and thereby increase apparent prejudice or racism. (The roots of prejudice lie in our brain’s "pattern recognition" ability to leap to conclusions from fragments of data – that an S-shaped object in our path is a snake, or, misguidedly, that all people of a certain skin color will fit certain stereotypes.) It can be bad to be "uninhibited," but it may not be your fault.

Pro-golfer Frank Urban "Fuzzy" Zoeller was 46 in 1997, when he said of Afro-Asian-American rival Tiger Woods: "That little boy is driving well…." Of the cuisine chosen by the Masters winner for the following year’s tournament banquet, Zoeller saluted Woods’s victory by joking: "Tell him not to serve fried chicken….or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve." This remark, called "vicious and demeaning" by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, cost Zoeller endorsement deals with K-Mart (later to employ as spokesperson the gun-hating Rosie O’Donnell) and Dunlop. Woods’s father would later be accused of saying that his African ancestors were too intelligent to play golf in the terrible weather of Scotland, as the game’s Scots inventors did.

Many have felt "the hook" because they opened their mouths.

Commentator Ben Wright was fired by CBS for remarks about the alleged sexual preferences of some on the Ladies Professional Golfers Association tour. Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott was penalized by fellow National League baseball owners for her insensitive statements about minority players. John Rocker is paying the price for a variety of politically incorrect comments about what he perceived on a New York subway.

But are these people victimizers — or victims? What if their hurtful statements came not from a state of mind but a condition of brain? Do they deserve punishment — or protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act? Under the ADA, should they be entitled to protection against being fined or fired? Should they be able to sue for income lost because of bigotry and discrimination against those with their newly recognized disability? Tipper Gore, as part of her crusade in behalf of those with mental problems, should speak out in defense of John Rocker and all the other misunderstood victims whose brains have too little "inhibition." We should be more sensitive to the "insensitive."

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