“Shame, shame, shame”
In the now widely viewed videos of the ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, just after the shots are fired, a woman off-screen screams “shame!” repeatedly. It registers as a primal cry: how can you do this to us on the streets of our cities! But it also reveals an important insight into this authoritarian moment in our history, especially how it is all being executed without shame.
In our culture, shame often has a bad connotation. To be sure, sometimes people feel a sense of unworthiness that undermines their self-esteem, and this sense of shame prevents people from loving themselves or others. Shame in that sense isn’t healthy or productive.
But there is another sense of shame that is a natural emotional response to the awareness that we have offended or hurt others. The offender feels morally guilty and consequently exposed to those who judge them to be culpable. In these cases, it is appropriate that the offender feel ashamed of their behavior and acknowledge their offense.
We want people to feel shame when they behave in such anti-social ways because, when they do, it signals that we still affirm a set of shared moral norms.
The real accusation conveyed when people cry “shame” at ICE agents is that these people are acting with no shame. There is no acknowledgement of any wrongdoing, no willingness to take responsibility for their behavior, no recognition that this prevents us from having a shared moral framework that is the foundation of any society.
To be lacking in shame is to have no moral compass. The administration has said as much, and brazenly. In response to the question in a recent NY Times extended interview, “Do you see any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop if you wanted to?” Trump said: “Yeah, there’s one thing: my own morality, my own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. And that’s very good. I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people.”
There is no morality here, no pretense of believing that we share moral values that should guide how we exercise power. There is just power, pure and simple, and the powerful can wield their power as they see fit, according to the morality in their own minds, in Trump’s words.
They enthusiastically embrace this immoral view of society. Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff, said in an interview with Jake Tapper: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” They operate with no shame, because they reject the very idea that force should be constrained, either domestically or internationally (see: Venezuela).
· When ICE agents storm the streets of our cities and confront ordinary citizens with violent reprisals in response to simple, peaceful forms of protest--
· When the administration defends its every action in terms that communicate clearly that it rejects the very idea of limits to its power, either constitutional or social--
· When officials throughout the government—from DHS to DOJ to CDC--indicate that they are unconcerned about the effects of their own policies on whole groups of citizens and immigrants alike--
It is time to say loudly and clearly: the perpetrators of all this have no moral shame because they do not affirm any shared moral norms with the rest of us.
In that context, screaming “shame” is an accusation and a moral statement. We cannot live together in society if we don’t have the capacity to feel shame.
We need to maintain that cry, announcing again and again that we will not permit those in power to abuse that power. We require accountability, we demand shame.
If we are going to survive this period as a democracy, let us all continue to cry “shame” each time we confront this increasingly violent, immoral, authoritarianism. When we do, we affirm our common humanity and the need for all of us to live together in a society that is moral and just.