ISSUES #22: MAY 2016
Perception Is Everything
by Vernon R. Heard
perception [per-sep-shuh n] noun 1. The act or faculty of perceiving, or apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind; cognition; understanding. 2. Immediate or intuitive recognition or appreciation, as of moral, psychological or aesthetic qualities; insight; intuition; discernment.
Perception is the basis for a lot of our cultural and societal positions. Our beliefs (religious, racial, sexual, political, etc.) are based on our perception of the way things are. Our perception can be influenced by our peers, our own experiences, TV and media in general as well as our prejudices, upbringing and predisposed ideas. It’s crazy how people can see the same information, video clip, news passage or whatever input is at hand, and come away with totally different interpretations.
Against my better judgment, I’ve been roped into more and more social media discussions, blogs and such. In relation to the controversial police shootings of unarmed civilians I’ve read some conversation strings that were REALLY shocking. With the anonymity that posting online provides, a lot of people’s TRUE feelings come out that would never be voiced in public. I’ve seen really hateful posts about the victims and the circumstances surrounding the incidents all based on their perceptions. From citizens, police officers and politicians. Here are a few examples…
Eric Garner:
What some perceive – Eric Garner was a hulking mass of a man that put fear into the five or six officers tasked with subduing him. He resisted arrest and was placed in a non-lethal, department standard submission hold. Eric Garner was so fat and out of shape that he probably had a heart attack during the incident. Eric Garner was a thug that was breaking the law selling cigarettes. When cops try to arrest you, let them do it and deal with the case and their unfair treatment when you go to court. In this case, the officer was rightfully exonerated by a grand jury. Justice will always prevail.
What others perceive – Eric Garner’s encounter with the officer was not random. Eric was repeatedly harassed by the same police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, in his neighborhood whether he was doing something or not. He was fed up with the repeat run-ins with the same cop. This officer had previously been sued three times (by Kenneth Collins, Rylawn Walker and Darren Collins/Tommy Rice) for illegal arrests and public strip searches (including pants and underwear removed and genitals searched in public). Notably the charges against all three “suspects” were dropped and their cases sealed by the court; in one instance the very next day after arrest.
In Eric’s case, he protested, ON VIDEO, being victimized again by Pantaleo. Eye witnesses said that Eric was not involved in illegal activity but was involved in breaking up a fight that the police were too late to do anything about. Eric was swarmed and attacked by up to five officers and placed in the now infamous chokehold. The chokehold applied to Eric Garner had been banned by the NYPD for years and was against department policy, a fact seemingly dismissed by the public AND the grand jury. The coroner ruled Eric’s death a homicide so his weight and health were not a factor in his death. The coroner noted that pressure to his windpipe and throat were the cause of Eric’s death. The coroner, the eye witnesses, the videotape, the absence of medical help captured on videotape, all combined should have been enough to warrant charges against the officer to AT LEAST put the facts before a trial jury. A sidebar issue is that even if he would have allowed the cops to arrest him to deal with the issue afterwards, his being taken in creates or adds to a criminal record for him that follows him the rest of his life. Even when dismissed cases are supposed to be expunged, they never REALLY go away. Cops know this when they arrest (Black) people. Plus they put the person in a position to financially foot the bill for clearing their name whether they initially committed a crime or not. A position they may or may not be able to afford. Then, when cops eventually kill them, the record, true or false, is used to discredit them and inspire attitudes that the world is a better place without them.
It’s odd how the same set of videotaped circumstances present two completely different perspectives.
Michael Brown:
What some perceive - A behemoth of a MAN (regardless of his being 17 yrs. old), fresh from a strong armed robbery, is rightfully gunned down after brutally attacking a police officer who was going about his sworn duty. Mike Brown fought and attempted to disarm the officer then ran after being shot in the hand. Mike flees from the police vehicle then turns around and charges the officer taking bullets to the body as he continues to charge until he is ultimately shot in the head and killed. (Kinda like it happens in the movies.) Police were not able to move or cover Michael Brown’s dead body at the crime scene until the scene could be secured four and a half hours later. Police officer reports to the hospital with severe injuries and is later pictured in a hospital bed with a fractured eye socket. Supporting testimony was offered by an eye witness at the scene and the officer himself testified that he was afraid for his life. Of course, no charges filed against the officer. No brainer.
What others perceive - A 17-yr. old child, set to start college soon, is accosted by a police officer after ignoring the
officer’s initial interaction with him. This incident takes place in a community where police violence and power abuse is rampant so there is already inherent disdain for and distrust of police in the area. Mike brown attempted to flee from the officer and the officer gunned him down and executed him in plain sight of an entire neighborhood. Videotapes from the scene depict every witness interviewed stating that Brown’s hands were up and that he was surrendering. This from community residents and non-residents working in proximity to the event. Pictures published of Darren Wilson’s injuries don’t really show any damage at all. The “orbital fracture” story originally release by “authorities” is obviously not true and Darren’s “injuries” are all implied (as opposed to actually shown) on the right side of his face. As a side note, when you’re driving in a vehicle and someone punches you through the driver’s side car window, the left side of your face is the exposed side unless you’re in Europe. It’s difficult to get punched in the right side of your face when it is actually opposite to the driver’s window. Not impossible, but you’d expect at least some damage to the left side of the face if you were attacked through your driver’s side window. But I digress.
Pictures were circulated on the internet with claims that they were an injured Darren Wilson. In reality they were pics of the late freestyle motocross rider Jim McNeil after crashing at a riding event in 2006. Jim died in 2011, by the way. Also, the Young Conservatives website even displayed a fake x-ray of Darren Wilson’s facial fractures here: http://www.youngcons.com/breaking-sources-confirm-what-injuries-office-darren-wilson-suffered-during-the-attack/ . All of this shaped the perception of the incident and of Mike Brown early on.
The actual photos of Darren Wilson’s facial injuries are here…
Even with the exposure and disproof of the purposely false information, there were still posts like this one…
Further, another prevelant perception is that Darren Wilson was never intended to be tried. That Prosecutor Bob McCulloch went out of his way to mishandle the grand jury hearing, including knowingly putting an “eye witness” on the stand that he knew was lying on WIlson's behalf. Fortunately for Darrin Wilson, her testimony contradicted 14 other witnesses but supported Darren Wilson’s account of the events. McCulloch would later admit in an interview that he knew (at http://www.newsweek.com/false-testimony-may-trip-new-case-against-darren-wilson-293926) the witness was “clearly not telling the truth”. Also, the grand jury was given an obsolete statute regarding appropriate and legal use of force on a fleeing suspect that misled the jury to believe that Darren Wilson was within the law to shoot Michael Brown. The statute was established in 1979 and ruled unconstitutional 6 years later in 1985, so it had not been legal for 28 years, as seen here: http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/shocking-mistake-in-darren-wilson-grand-jury-364273731666. While none of this is breaking news any longer, the preponderance of the evidence should at least warrant revisiting the grand jury hearing, an investigation of Bob McCulloch himself, and a conspiracy charge against MuCulloch, Wilson and the managing officers of the Ferguson police department.
So, it’s understandable that the perception in the Black community is that videotape, eyewitnesses, the police department, and the "justice" process only work when applied to Black suspects and rarely to perpetrators of violence against Black victims. Unless, of course, the perpetrator is also Black.
THE BLACK EYE LENS:
Another example of manipulation of public perception of the Black community is when the media purposely creates what I call THE BLACK EYE lens. The Black Eye lens is applied, for instance, in cases like when a news crew rolls into a Black neighborhood and they televise an interview with the person with no front teeth, rollers in their hair who’s English is totally screwed up vs. anyone else available. The Black Eye lens was applied when a little 4-yr. old kid was interviewed on location where a shooting had taken place in a Black neighborhood and his comment when asked about what he wanted when he grew up was edited to “I’m gonna get a GUN!” when he actually said he wanted to get a gun because he wanted to be a police officer.
News report twists statement of 4-yr. old Black kid in interview.
The Black Eye lens was also applied when Fox news recently reported on a peaceful protest in Boston, MA where protestors chanted "we won't stop, we can't stop, 'til killer cops, are in cell blocks". Fox edited their footage and reported on the protestors chanting "kill a cop" instead. Highly different message and purposely inflammatory.
After Michael Brown was murdered an Ontario, Canada man posted a video clip of a teen attacking an old man falsely claiming that it was Michael Brown. This was in December of 2014. The video was viewed 19.1 million times and SHARED 823,000 times. The video was not Michael Brown. The video was later debunked but who knows... if, say..., 20% of the people who viewed the video and believed it depicted Michael Brown didn't hear that the video was fake, that leaves almost 2 miillion people with the impression that Michael Brown beat and robbed the man in the video. You can read more information in this article from Fox News (of ALL people!!) here: http://fox2now.com/2015/01/06/debunked-that-is-not-michael-brown-attacking-a-man/ .
The Black Eye lens is usually applied when the media posts pics of Black victims of white violence looking as gangsta as possible. Some pics turn out to not even be the person depicted. This disparity was the source of a trend of Twitter posts with the tag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown:
Undercover Cops Incite Violence To Overthrow Peaceful Protests
Lastly, the new phenomenon of the peaceful protest turning violent (as depicted in Ferguson, MO, Los Angeles, CA and other locations in/outside of the U.S.) has been proven to be orchestrated by the POLICE! Plainclothes police have been videotaped and otherwise exposed inciting violence. In the video on the left, undercover cops were captured throwing rocks at uniformed officers, pushing and attacking riot police and other actions to initiate and justify a response from militarized police (as the police captain admits in the video). This shifts a peaceful protest toward a violent conclusion and not only discredits the the protestors and their cause but also nets the city a cash come up in citations, bail and court costs. So protests that spiral into violent clashes are not always because of the protestors as they are perceived. Unfortunately, the only images that the court of popular opinion sees are those of that violent clash in progress, regardless of how it started.
Hopefully, the takeaway from this article is that you can’t take news reports at face value. No one, of any race or culture. Clearly pundits will try to remix the meaning of something that you can already see playing out with your own eyes. Moreover, there seems to be a unified push to control the image of Blacks in America; from music to news to social media. With that push comes the fuel to ensure the deck remains stacked against our efforts, the scales remain tilted and the lens through which Black culture is viewed retains the same skewed and negative prescription.
This, however, is not an insurmountable obstacle. There are many from the Black community that have achieved greatness in spite of the perception of others. If they could do it, you can too. The valedictorians, entrepreneurs, scholars, inventors, and overall innovators are not as newsworthy to mainstream media when the Black Eye needs to be fed. We don’t even have to mention the throng of athletes, or the fashion and musicians and entire African societies whose ideas and culture have been borrowed or stolen and rebranded since time has been measured. Hell, even the Bible has been remixed to suit the narrative.
Ask yourself, why?
V. Ray
#positiveblack
