Leonard Pitts: Cruelty is the point, but is it evil?

(Cedar Attanasio | AP file photo) Central American migrants wait for food in a pen erected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to process a surge of migrant families and unaccompanied minors in El Paso, Texas, on March 27, 2019.In popular culture and historical memory, of course, evil has many faces. It is Darth Vader raising a lightsaber and Dr. Doom glowering from behind a metal mask. It is Charles Manson grinning his lunatic's grin and Adolf Hitler ranting himself into a frothing rage.

But in everyday life, evil is seldom so obvious or loud. In everyday life, evil is the face of a man balancing a briefcase and a cup of designer coffee, the face of a woman buying groceries. It is the…