Grace Hagan
Mrs. Murray
Period 7
23 January 2023
The Consequences of Indifference
According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of discrimination is “prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment.” In the real world, one sees an example of this in actions like a storekeeper refusing to serve a customer because they have a disability. In The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LeValle, the reader sees an innocent black man murdered by a police officer, unprovoked, with no consequences. The hidden monster in society, though, is not discrimination alone, but indifference along with it. Failure of society to acknowledge and act against discriminators can have consequences just as appalling as the ones from discrimination, such as forcing people
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When Mr. Howard shows no sympathy or regret after he shot Otis, it forces Tommy to bottle up all of his emotions. When Tommy shows up to his tenement with the expectation of seeing his father, he is greeted by Mr. Howard telling him that Otis is dead by blurting out, “neither with relish nor with sympathy”(LeValle 61), that his “father’s dead”(LeValle 61). Knowing that expressing his grief would do nothing for him, Tommy keeps his feelings inside him, which consequently burst out later in the novel in the form of violence. An illustration of this is evident later in the book, when Malone finds Mr. Howard in the basement sitting “in the great chair [with] the top of [his] head torn off”(LeValle 127). Since Black Tom was not able to express his grief when Otis was killed due to the lack of sympathy shown to him by the police, especially Mr. Howard, his feelings burst out now, in acts of cruelty against the ones who hurt him. Now, the only way that he thinks he can get all of his negative feelings out is by getting revenge on the man who killed Otis, which was Mr. Howard. To relate to the theme, indifference is just as problematic as discrimination because it caused the same outcome. Discrimination resulted in the death of Otis Tester, and indifference resulted in the death of Mr. Howard, both equally as horrifying as the other. If Black Tom was shown any pity during his situation, he would not feel the need to convey his emotions by causing other people to feel the pain he felt, and Mr. Howard and so many others would still be alive. To solve the problem in society today and in the novel, people need to learn to empathize with the people around them, no matter their race, gender, status, or any other