The Front-Page Test

This week in my Ethics course, we read the letter that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from the Birmingham Jail in response to the Alabama Clergymen.  Here is a link for the letter if you have not had a chance to read it but would like to: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html  .

To start out with, I was impressed with how well Dr. King articulated his thoughts while he was sitting in jail for something that he knew was unjust.  If I would have found myself in this same situation, I do not believe that I would have been nearly as eloquent with my words or writing styles as Dr. King was with his response to the Clergymen.  Dr. King knew that segregation was not only unjust, but it was something that was not going to quietly disappear unless people like him took a stand and stood up for what they believed in.  While I feel as though there were many other people who felt as passionately about ending segregation as he did, I think that a lot of people let their fear hold them back from speaking out against injustice.  Dr. King pointed out in his letter that the “white moderate” was actually doing more harm than the Ku Klux Klan in enabling segregation because these people knew it was wrong yet they did little or nothing in order to help stop it.  

This notion made me think about other issues today that people feel are wrong, but for fear of upsetting someone (family member, friend, etc.) they do not speak up about them.  An example that came to mind derived from the events on September 11, 2001.  Since that day when those horrendous attacks took place on American soil, I feel that many Americans have changed their attitudes toward people from the Middle East.  While “terrorists” are definitely people who we have learned to be wary of, I do not think it is right automatically assign suspicion to anyone who may be of Middle Eastern descent.  Unfortunately, I have personally witnessed this kind of stereotyping against them, especially in airports.  I am not talking about the searches that everyone must comply with—I think those are great and promote safety during our air travel; rather, I am talking about the attitude or conduct change that occurs when people see a person wearing a turban or burka.  The whispers, the stares, or in general just the immediate fear that arises solely based on the color of a person’s skin or articles of clothing that they are wearing is not warranted.  I have witnessed people being downright rude to Middle Eastern people, who were just trying to make their way from A to B, just as we were.  While this is very different from segregation, due to the lack of laws supporting this type of differential treatment, it still presents an ethical issue because this group of people is not being treated justly.  Unfortunately, because of the 9/11 attacks and the ongoing Muslim extremism throughout the world, there is no easy "fix" to this; however, I believe that people should be cognizant of this biased attitude so that they can recognize when they are treating someone in a way that may promote this type of unrecognized segregation.

In class this week we watched the movie “The Dark Night,” which depicted the classic struggle of good and evil as embodied by the struggle between the Batman and Joker.   The Joker continued to put Batman in ethical dilemmas, where he would have to choose the lesser evil.  One significant struggle in the movie came when the Joker took both Harvey and Rachel hostage, and Batman was forced to choose which person he would save because there was no time to save both.  Talk about an ethical dilemma!  This was one of those situations where there was no “right” answer because either decision would have resulted in someone's death.  Our textbook this week focused on corruption, and this movie aligned perfectly with that topic.  The authors, Bowman and West (2015), discussed a “front-page test” that people should consider when making ethical decisions.  If the actions that people are committing right now ended up on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow, would they be okay with this?  When thinking about the actions that the Joker made throughout the movie, the "front-page test" would not seem to be much of a deterrent, especially since he took pleasure in making other people, namely Batman, suffer.  However, for many people, the idea of having their unethical actions publicly displayed on the front page of a newspaper would raise a red flag for them and might help them to reconsider whatever decision they were about to make.  I think this test is a good thing to keep in mind when making questionable decisions because if having a story in the newspaper would bother you, then maybe you should not proceed with your current plan.

Thank you for reading my blog post.  Please leave any comments or questions below.  Have a great week!

References:

Bowman, J. S., and West, J. P. (2015). Public service ethics: Individual and institutional responsibilities.  Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.