Thirty-Eight People and I: The Murder of Kitty Genovese

The following is a response to the article written by Martin Gansberg for the New York Times two weeks after the murder of Kitty Genovese on the night of March 14, 1964. If you have not read the article or are not familiar with the events of that night, or the significance of the aftermath, I encourage you to read it here:

Thirty-Eight people sit back and watch a gruesome murder, a horrific act, a miserable play. "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." So spoke Jaques as part of his famous soliloquy in William Shakespeare's As You Like It. The commonplace of writers since that strange and fateful night has been to criticize, even chastise the residents of the small apartment complex. There may in fact be no doubt that what they did was wrong. That is not what I wish to question here. Rather, what can I, another bystander, another voyeur, another mere player, pass in judgment towards them.

There exists pure factual account, police reports and witness accounts, that the renters were too caught up within themselves, too comfortable and safe to pursue the risk of pushing themselves outward in the vulnerable task of helping, saving the life in need. Each had an excuse for why they did nothing to help the poor victim of the violent crime occurring right beneath their windowsills. Such is an act (or lack thereof) which deserves loathing, perhaps even hatred. But which of these have I the right to give? I too am pursuing my own life. I too prefer the comfort of my room, my bed, my window, to the cool concrete of the street, the cold air of the night, and the danger of the unknown. As long as I have the same fear behind me that these thirty-eight everyday people had that night, I cannot judge their actions.

What I can do is let their mistakes inform me, inform my actions. I can learn by admitting my own fault, for it is in these people I see where I too would fail. I may let this be a lesson, let this be the fable and myth it has become, and learn as a child from Aesop. So that perhaps the next time when there is a need to be filled, however small or however monumental and frightening, I might step down and lend a bit of my life.