Episode 212: Gaza and the Political Utility of Selective Empathy

"Salvadoran Ties Bloodshed To a 'Culture of Violence'", reported The New York Times in 1981. "The violence in Lebanon is casual, random, and probably addicting," stated the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in 1985. "Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims," wrote long-time New Republic publisher and editor-in-chief Marty Peretz in 2010.

There’s a recurring theme within media coverage of subjugated people in the US and around the world: they’re mindlessly, inherently savage. Whether the subject is immigrants from Central and South America, Black populations in major American cities, or people in Lebanon or Palestine, we’re repeatedly told that any violence they may be subjected to or carry out themselves is inevitable, purposeless, and baked into their "culture."

The pathologizing of violence in certain racialized communities is one side of the coin. The other side of the coin, which reinforces this notion, is the equally sinister concept of selective empathy. It’s a conditional sense of compassion, reserved for victims who media deem deserving—say, Ukrainian victims of Russia’s invasion—and not for those who media deem undeserving, like Palestinians under siege by Israel in Gaza. What motivates this asymmetry, and how does it shape public understandings of suffering throughout the world? How is empathy as a form of media currency central to getting the public to care about victims of certain violence, while a lack of empathy––and even worse, pathologizing violence in certain communities––conditions the public to not care about those whose deaths those in power would rather not talk about, much less humanize.

In this episode, we look at the concept of selective empathy in media coverage, examining how it continues centuries-old campaigns of dehumanization – particularly against Arab, Black, and Latino people – bifurcates victims of global violence into the deserving and the undeserving, and influences contemporary opinion on everything from pain tolerance to criminal-legal policy.

Our guest is Dr. Muhannad Ayyash.