The 1.5-minute video is difficult to watch. Two teens girls, ages 13 and 15, confronted Uber Eats driver, Mohammad Anwar, 66, while this humble Pakistani immigrant was trying to eke out a living working for a company run by billionaires. Mr. Anwar resisted as the teens tasered him. They managed to take the car, with Mr. Anwar hanging onto the driver’s door. Recklessly careening, the teens crashed the vehicle. Mr. Anwar was crushed by the driver’s door when the teens struck a pole. The vehicle then overturned crushing Mr. Anwar on the sidewalk. The two teens ran away. However, one returned, distraught and yelling repeatedly, “My cellphone is in that car,” pointing to the upside-down vehicle next to Mr. Anwar.
The teens had just engaged in a series of events that resulted in the murder of Mr. Anwar and the primary concern was retrieving a cellphone, something that would required stepping over the body of a man whose life they had taken.
How do we have such detail? Why, bystanders filmed this horror but did not step in to help Mr. Anwar or stop the fleeing teen girls. The video is not for the fainthearted. Indeed, the video itself is a documentary on how far we have slipped, nay jumped, into an “every man, woman, child for themselves” society.
Today a Wall Street Journal reporter documented how smugglers tossed a six-month-old baby into the waters of the Rio Grande because border agents were approaching. The logic behind their attempted infanticide was that the agents would try to save the baby, thereby giving them time to escape. The inhumanity at the border is suspected, but not addressed. Photos of conditions escape the media lockdown on coverage, and we are, of course, “shocked, shocked,” but do nothing.
We are back to the days of Kitty Genovese, a young woman murdered as tenants in an apartment complex heard and watched the assault but did nothing. Many scholars have argued that the bystander effect that arose in the Kitty Genovese murder could never happen again. We are different now, they maintain. We are different. We are worse. Not only do we not step in to help, we step back and record the events, hoping for 5.5 million views of our work documenting slaughter and inhumanity Mr. Anwar, a husband, a father, a grandfather, an uncle, a hard-working immigrant is dead. The senseless acts of two teens killed him. Not to worry — it is all on YouTube. No word yet on what happened to the cell phone.
What manner of people are we? Beyond what is described here, the coverage of the teen’s grief over her cellphone is missing from most of the stories covering this senseless tragedy. Oh, the society we have created. Missing a text message is the priority, not the missing life.
About mmjdiary
Professor Marianne Jennings is an emeritus professor of legal and ethical studies from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, retiring in 2011 after 35 years of teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in ethics and the legal environment of business. During her tenure at ASU, she served as director of the Joan and David Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics from 1995-1999. In 2006, she was appointed faculty director for the W.P. Carey Executive MBA Program. She has done consulting work for businesses and professional groups including AICPA, Boeing, Dial Corporation, Edward Jones, Mattel, Motorola, CFA Institute, Southern California Edison, the Institute of Internal Auditors, AIMR, DuPont, AES, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Motorola, Hy-Vee Foods, IBM, Bell Helicopter, Amgen, Raytheon, and VIAD.
The sixth edition of her textbook, Case Studies in Business Ethics, was published in February 2011. The ninth edition of her textbook, Business: lts Legal, Ethical and Global Environment was published in January 2011. The 23rd edition of her book, Business Law: Principles and Cases, will be published in January 2013. The tenth edition of her book, Real Estate Law, will also be published in January 2013. Her book, A Business Tale: A Story of Ethics, Choices, Success, and a Very Large Rabbit, a fable about business ethics, was chosen by Library Journal in 2004 as its business book of the year. A Business Tale was also a finalist for two other literary awards for 2004. In 2000 her book on corporate governance was published by the New York Times MBA Pocket Series. Her book on long-term success, Building a Business Through Good Times and Bad: Lessons from Fifteen Companies, Each With a Century of Dividends, was published in October 2002 and has been used by Booz, Allen, Hamilton for its work on business longevity. Her latest book, The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse was published by St. Martin’s Press in July 2006 and has been a finalist for two book awards.
Her weekly columns are syndicated around the country, and her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Reader's Digest. A collection of her essays, Nobody Fixes Real Carrot Sticks Anymore, first published in 1994 is still being published. She has been a commentator on business issues on All Things Considered for National Public Radio.
She has served on four boards of directors, including Arizona Public Service (1987-2000), Zealous Capital Corporation, and the Center for Children with Chronic Illness and Disability at the University of Minnesota. She was appointed to the board of advisors for the Institute of Nuclear Power Operators in 2004 and served on the board of trustees for Think Arizona, a public policy think tank. She has appeared on CNBC, CBS This Morning, the Today Show, and CBS Evening News.
In 2010 she was named one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Business Ethics by Trust Across America. Her books have been translated into four different languages. She received the British Emerald award for authoring one of their top 50 articles in management publications, chosen from over 15,000 articles.
Personal: Married since 1976 to Terry H. Jennings, Maricopa County Attorney’s Office Deputy County Attorney; five children: Sarah, Sam, and John, and the late Claire and Hannah Jennings.
