Careless People
Careless people ruin lives, but they don’t care because they and their families are well insulated from the rest of us.
One of my favorite works of American fiction is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” For those of you who haven’t read it, Tom and Daisy are two fictional characters in the book. They were a wealthy couple who were arrogant, selfish, and morally corrupt. They were indifferent to others’ suffering caused by their actions. Towards the end of the book, Fitzgerald wrote, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
I’ve been thinking about this passage lately because it so poignantly describes the world we live in now, a world that is ruined by bad ideas and policies of careless people.
I follow a Twitter account called “Asian Crime Report” on X.com. The account highlights crimes against Asian Americans out of frustration that mainstream media ignores reporting those crimes whenever the perpetrators are not white. The most recent post was a disturbing video about eight black men robbing an Asian jewelry store in Oakland Chinatown and cleaning the store out. The video also showed an older Asian lady, probably the store’s co-owner, trying to stop them in vain, even though she was frightened.
This incident took place only three days after another Asian jewelry store in Chinatown was robbed. The local newspaper claimed it had no description of the perpetrators, even though the surveillance video in the store clearly showed that six black teens “smashed and grabbed” whatever they wanted.
People I know who live in Oakland, CA, told me that minority-owned businesses like these jewelry stores are frequently targets of robbery. Things have gotten a lot worse after the city’s Democrat mayor defunded the police and the state Democrat-led legislature passed a law to decriminalize robbery in 2021. Robbery (theft with force) and aggravated assault in 2022 increased by 9.9% and 5.2%, respectively.
Big retail chains such as Target and Walgreens shut down several stores in the most problematic areas in Oakland and downtown San Francisco. These retail giants’ national footprints mean they can make up for their loss elsewhere. But mom-and-pop shops don’t have the luxury to pack up and leave. Their stores represent everything they have. They depend on incomes from their businesses to pay for their kid’s college, the next car repair, the next hospital visits, and their retirements. Knowing how frugal Asian small business owners can be, a devastating robbery meant the owners lost everything they’ve worked hard for and wouldn’t be able to recuperate any losses because they didn’t purchase insurance.
But the people in the mayor’s office and those in San Sacramento don’t care. They don’t live in working-class neighborhoods such as Chinatown or shop in stores in those neighborhoods. They passed laws to make themselves feel good without considering deleterious effects on average citizens. Their indifference is a slap in the face to those struggling to make ends meet.
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