It's been said so often we might as well attribute it to everyone: "we don't see things the way they are, we see them the way we are." So much in life hinges on tiny details. Things nearly identical can be seen in such enormously different fashion and we rarely seem to ask ourselves what the difference is. Sometimes the only difference is the way we are.
In a small Texas town yesterday, the Sheriff pulled 24-year-old Joshua Manuel Lopez's car over in a suburban neighborhood. Lopez had an outstanding warrant for graffiti. There was a scuffle, Sheriff Michael Pimentel was fatally shot.
What we think happened has so much to do with who we are. Much has to do with how the story is presented to us and this time, for some reason, CNN only gave us the bare bones facts, no a priori conclusions were jumped to. But there were so many ways of presenting this and as the metaphorical butterfly can set off a hurricane, it's the minute subtleties of our perception and the writer's perception that determine whether we sigh and go on to the next story, whether we feel bad for the officer, whether we see it as police brutality -- whether we talk about the way police treat minorities, write headlines about an innocent murdered for a misdemeanor or about those probably illegal Hispanics ruining America. There is far more than beauty in the eye of the beholder.
I doubt that the president will show up at the funeral or that the streets of Elmendorf, Texas will see loud and violent protest and I have to ask just how different is this case from other cases. Might it have been different if the ethnicity had been different, if the presumption of malice had been inserted in the coverage, if the trajectory of the bullet had varied by an inch or two? But my perception is meaningless, it's what the public thinks that matters. This is not an art museum and whether the painting is a Picasso or a Pissarro is not determined by the frame. It's determined by you and with whom you choose to side; by what causes you identify with, what party you belong to and what news you listen to. Perhaps the Buddhists are right and it's all an illusion, a great emptiness we fill with ourselves.
Will someone accuse me of racism here? of being unsympathetic? It doesn't matter and the "I" who wrote this is the you who are reading it. Nothing is true, all things are permitted.
It has been said perception is reality, certainly in the eyes and mind or the one perceiving.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many possible ways to perceive everything and so much rests on life'a experience, culture, and biases, personal as well as cultural.
But I'm weary... of much.
And dad had a heart attack.
Sorry to hear that. But yes, in every aspect of existence there is a gap between what we see and what we think we see and what actually is.
DeleteWhat am I missing here? A sheriff pulls over a motorist and is shot dead?
ReplyDeleteUsually, there would be a ticket, a warning, or some other non-violent resolution.
Again, is there something I am missing?
A man is pulled over. He shoots the sheriff dead. One can surmise that he shot the sheriff en vez de surrender.
You say that there was a scuffle? Do people normally scuffle with guns? Usually, if I don't wish to go to jail, since I was fourteen, I don't run away from or scuffle with police officers.
What? Que pasa? No entiendo.
You're missing what I'm missing -- a way to take the incident and use it to illustrate some theme. Police brutality, racism, juvenile delinquency, danger of guns. . . In truth, no sabemos but how often does that stop us from filling in the blanks?
ReplyDeleteThe Olympic conclusion jump is a hot sport, but our tendency to do that isn't helped by the need to enrage and inflame as a tactic in some battle.
Considering the media circus surrounding events in Ferguson, I have avoided all discussion boards on the subject.
ReplyDeleteCompeting claims: Law and order versus free speech rights and freedom of the press.
The Ferguson community has legitimate grievances; all protestors are looters;
Demographic under-representation: Population - 67% Black-American; police force – less than 4% Black-American; Town Council - a Black to White ratio of 1:6.
The kid was a shoplifter and a thug; the police officer murdered an unarmed teenager.
Accounts of “speed trap” harassment impoverishing an already impoverished community.
One day: A press report that subject police officer suffered an orbital eye fracture. Next day: A retraction of subject report.
Liberal blogs: “See, the story was bogus!” Cringe Fringe blogs: Willful denials of the retraction followed by endless repetitions of the initial claim.
A partisan lynch mentality with a rush to judgment no matter how you slice and dice it; but nobody, and I mean nobody, has the patience or forethought to await the results of state and federal investigators.
Oh, but the Missouri AG is biased against Blacks; no, the Federal AG is biased against Whites - etcetera, etcetera ad nauseam!
Yup, the whole thing has evolved into a shooting match between warring tribes hell bent on bashing each others’ brains out.
Time for the cephalopod to munch a bunch of crustaceans. A lemming species … all you humanoids!
Abigail Adams, who I like more than her husband, once wrote in a letter about the War of 1912 "A house divided upon itself - and upon that foundation do our enemies build their hopes of subduing us." Of course everyone else, from Hobbes to Lincoln has expatiated on that Gospel quote, but it always seems to fit. The saddest thing is that it doesn't matter if the cause behind the division is good or not and when it's all out war everybody looses.
ReplyDeleteIt's like positive feedback in any unstable system, whether it's a squealing microphone or a nuclear chain reaction. The media, the leadership, should be the damping factor and that's hardly the case -- and we get the same full-bore sound and fury and righteous indignation (and too often righteous dishonesty). Try to act like a Beryllium rod and you get accused by both sides of being an extremist!
Good ole Abigail. A house divided against itself cannot stand: the Cephalopods shall inherit the Earth.
ReplyDeleteIf they do it would be better than the Republicans stealing it, but the more turmoil and anger and demonstrations, the more extremes Democrats are driven to, the more reason to blame chaos on the Liberals.
ReplyDeleteI remember back in the 50's that commentators would sigh and point at American apathy, especially among the youth. Now too many of us can't wait for a good old fashioned riot just like the 60's.
But yeah, let's give it all to the octopi so the squids don't get it! You can't trust the squidtards
All cephalopods are noble creatures. We eat what we take, and take no more than we can eat - unlikely greedy and wasteful humanoids.
DeleteWe suffer from one disadvantage, however. Since we live in a watery environment, we cannot cook or barbecue our food over an open flame. Nevertheless, we have other ways of flavoring live food: A very fast snatch followed by a very slow crunch to enhance the flavors of death and dying: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
Scrumptious!
Oh, I'm an octopus and I'm OK,
DeleteI think all night and I ink all day.
I open clams and eat my lunch
I swim all over the sea
On Wednesdays I go blogging
about psychology!