A video posted on Twitter showing the very different ways people responded to two blind men is gaining traction.
Both appeared to need assistance, wearing dark shades and traveling with a walking stick, but those captured in the social experiment revealed a very dark reality about race and empathy.
In the clip, the base of the social experiment was that despite similar conditions, people treated the taller white man differently than the shorter Black man.
Repeatedly, when the Black man touched the arm of the pedestrian walking close to him, people would jerk away. When the white man did the same act, while the people appeared to be startled, they acquiesced to his unspoken request for aid and helped him navigate the area.
Comments on social media ranged from being outraged to simply accepting that some white people will never be compassionate to Blacks, even if they are handicapped.
One person tweeted, “White ppl say all day ‘I dont see color’ ‘I don’t see color’ LIES!!! 0-8 for the black Man.”
“It’s 2023 & this is nothing new,” someone else tweeted with a virtual shrug.
