Racism Red Herring in Goetz Verdict

He was white. They were Black.

For many observers of the recent Goetz verdict, these were the only salient facts.

For those predisposed to believe that any person who bugs white subway riders deserves nothing less than to have a few quick bullet shots sent in his general direction, the jury's not guilty verdict was hailed, to borrow one tabloid's headline, as a "Triumph for Common Sense." For those secure in their belief that America will forever look the other way when a Black person stands at the point of a white person's gun, the decision was but one more instance of the legal system's endemic racism.

But if these two responses to the jury's decision come from different viewpoints--one by and large conservative, the other essentially liberal--both sides share a discomfiting agreement that a broad view of the right to self-defense is necessary. One side says vigilantism is cvommon sense, the other says its only permissible so long as it isn't allowed for whites only. Both sides seem unfortunately willing to give into the paranoia over crime, and to allow private citizens to take on a quasi-police role.

By letting Goetz go free, critics of the verdict say the jury in effect provided whites with a license to shoot Black people. They provide no qualifications. The case purely and simply was about how Blacks and whites relate to each other, they say. Goetz becomes the white version of everyman, and his victims play the corresponding Black roles.

Once this assumption is made that first and foremost Goetz is white, i.e. instinctively prone to wish death upon Blacks, and that the four youths are first and foremost Black, i.e. hell-bent on terrorizing whites, then the case falls neatly into place. If the white gets off, white fear is justified and the stereotype of the Black as an innate criminal is vindicated.

But this is a theoretical mind-play which by all accounts from the jurors--Black and white--does not begin to explain what went on in their heads. The excessive concentration on race serves only to divert attention from the true danger of the Goetz decision, its approval of vigilantism, not racism.

Staking their argument on rhetorical ploys, political columnists such as Carl Rowan and Murray Kempton have condemned the jurors for sanctioning societal prejudice. A Black guy who shoots four white guys would never get off, they say. But if the jurors were to let a hypothetical Black assailant off, would Kempton and Rowan rest easier? They should not, because they would in effect be standing up for the principle that people scared of young tough kids are justified in using deadly force.

When people make the Goetz case a referendum on race, they are forced into defending vigilantism for all in order to oppose racism. Opposition to the Goetz verdict is reminiscent of the challenge presented to the death penalty which was struck down in a recent Supreme Court decision. The NAACP challenged the death penalty on the grounds that Blacks were more likely to be sentenced to execution than whites. The challenge stood for the principle of equality with respect to race, but in this case that meant non-discriminatory use of the death penalty.

In other words, the NAACP presumably would be satisfied with the death penalty so long as it applies equally to both Blacks and whites. And the net effect of the challenge being upheld would have been that once Americans overcame their racism, more people would be sentenced to death. What was never questioned was whether the death penalty as a punishment is acceptable for any person, Black or white.

Which brings us back to Goetz. What the jury decided was that the parameters for an individual's right to use deadly force in self-defense have been greatly expanded. If you are a young tough kid, carrying a potentially dangerous weapon, possessing a past history of criminal offenses, and you surround a subway passenger and ask him for money, it's open season on you. That's the issue that needs to be discussed. But too many critics of the Goetz opinion discount the fact that white hoods can travel in packs and harass Black people too. By their reasoning, the Black man who blows these four white kids to bits better get off if justice is to be done.

By viewing the Goetz case as a purely racial issue, we demean what it is to be human. The sole good becomes insuring that whatever whites can do, Blacks can do too--even if it means killing young people as a result of irrational fear. Is society so crime-ridden that it is just assumed that vigilantism is all right? And is our challenge now merely to ensure that racism not prevent Blacks from having the equal opportunity to act outside the law in self-defense? The recent flurry of commentary on the Goetz case suggests that we are at such a point, that indeed common sense has become the latest victim of the streets.