Dear black people

By Deauwand Myers

American Otto Warmbier's arrest, detention and subsequent death isn't news anymore. It was widely covered.

Less discussed is the reaction said incident garnered from some fellow African-Americans, and colored people more broadly. Blogs, essays, and Facebook commentary too often reflected a cruelty I found shocking and morally reprehensible.

"He got what he deserved." "He was a frat boy; served him right." "White, male privilege made him think he could break North Korean law and get away with it." "I can't muster any sympathy for him with all these police killings of black people in America."

These and other commentaries were from educated people, even professors with doctorates, who ought to know better.

Let's interrogate some of these assertions:

—"He got what he deserved," and "White, male privilege made him think he could break North Korean law and get away with it."

According to the DPRK, Mr. Warmbier attempted to steal a North Korean banner, a crime for which he was convicted and sentenced to a decade and a half of hard labor.

First, one has to believe he actually committed this crime. That requires us to take the word of the DPRK. It's a fascist dictatorship, amoral and monstrously cruel. Numerous North Korean defectors, including high-ranking ones, have stated the DPRK can and does arbitrarily arrest people, and uses the detaining of American citizens as geopolitical pawns for leverage in its ongoing quest for regime survival.

Simply put, it's much more likely Warmbier was detained for no reason; he was a random target (and even if he did try to steal a North Korean banner, death isn't an appropriate penalty, obviously).

When we read or see black people getting shot and killed or maimed by American law enforcement for the smallest of offences, or for no offense at all, and we read racist/illogical commentary like: "he shouldn't have been wearing a hoodie," or "he shouldn't have been playing with a toy gun," we rightfully call this out as utter foolishness.

We have no idea of Warmbier's personality or interiority. But because he was a middle-class white man and part of a fraternity, he's guilty and deserving of death? This is disgusting.

—"I can't muster any sympathy for him with all these police killings of black people in America."

This is a non sequitur. What does an American citizen's arrest, torture, and death by a rogue regime have to do with police brutality against colored people in America? Absolutely nothing. We do a terrible disservice to the long list of people maimed or killed by American law enforcement by conflating their plight with a false notion of cosmic justice being meted out via Mr. Warmbier's treatment and death. Further,if you can't muster sympathy for someone in Mr. Warmbier's predicament, then you are flawed and immature.

In truth, I understand why these comments and their attendant feelings exist. Rightfully, people of color and people of conscience, regardless of race, are frustrated, disheartened, sad, and sickened by the ongoing racial injustice in American society; that American law enforcement can kill and/or brutalize citizens with impunity is frightening and emblematic of the larger issues of white supremacy, patriarchy, and classism embedded in American society.

Yet, disregarding the humanity of others, or worse, relishing in other people's suffering (and death), is unproductive, petty, childish, cruel and frankly, evil. Placing our angst with the state of social affairs in America onto the death of Mr. Warmbier is grossly inappropriate.

The project of the 20th and 21st centuries is recognizing and respecting the humanity in others, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, political persuasion, sexual orientation or nationality.

And for the record, white abolitionists, women suffragists and civil rights activists fought and died alongside legions of blacks and other people of color in the course of making America a more equitable society. We need more and more white allies to continue the fight. As I've said before, white supremacy won't end until a critical mass of whites concurs.

Yes, American citizens, and people from developed democracies in general, should not visit North Korea. Touring third-world countries is a kind of voyeurism wherein we gaze/fetishize others' sociopolitical, socioeconomic misfortune. This kind of tourism is in itself highly problematic.

Spending money in said countries only supports their regimes and prolongs the suffering of the citizenry thereof. This is privilege. This is power, and so I make a point not to vacation in undemocratic countries. In this way, Mr. Warmbier was wrong. Nonetheless, his "punishment," of detention and slow murder, in no way fits the crime.

Mr. Warmbier was a human being; his torture and subsequent death was unjust and horrific. Period.

That I needed to write an article explaining this is yet more proof that we, I mean as human beings, have a long, long way to go.

Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.