The United States?
On Apr 6, 12:21 pm, plainolamerican <plainolameri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Why Is Trayvon Being Slandered?
> ---
> for the same reason as Zimmerman ... it allows the media to scream
> racism
>
> those who use race as an excuse should be ignored
>
> On Apr 6, 11:38 am, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Why Is Trayvon Being Slandered?
> > By Jesse Singal, The Daily Beast
> > 01 April 12
>
> > Racism isn't the sole reason some people are painting Trayvon Martin
> > as a thug. Jesse Singal on the psychological quirks that perpetuate
> > rumors and twist facts in difficult cases.
>
> > How can we explain the startling ferocity of the efforts to portray
> > Trayvon Martin as a thug? As investigators continue to sort out why
> > self-appointed neighborhood-watch captain George Zimmerman shot and
> > killed the Florida teen last month, it's hard not to become distraught
> > at the extent to which a dead young man's reputation has been
> > gleefully dragged through the mud by so many people.
>
> > Any comment on the Martin case must be prefaced, of course, by the
> > acknowledgment that we're still operating with a real deficit of
> > information here. Other than the video and audio recordings we've seen
> > and heard, everything else is rampant speculation. But the rumors
> > themselves are still worth examining because of what they can tell us
> > about how the human mind works during a major news event.
>
> > It's easy to focus on the nasty racial components, which are hard to
> > deny. There has been a concerted online campaign to portray Martin as
> > a "thug" despite a complete lack of evidence that he ever engaged in
> > any sort of violence. Pundits and commentators are focusing on his
> > appearance, his style of dress, and the stupid, very teenage things he
> > said on his Twitter account. If they didn't think these irrelevant
> > details implied that Martin's own actions contributed to his death,
> > they wouldn't be so intently focused on propagating them.
> > But while race is undeniably a factor in the power of the rumors, it's
> > not the only one, and the connection between race-related feelings and
> > rumor-mongering is more complicated than it appears at first glance.
>
> > If we're actually going to understand why the Martin rumors exploded,
> > we're going to need some more-nuanced explanations.
> > Psychology is our friend here. Since rumors are such an important part
> > of human life, from the boardroom to counterinsurgency efforts,
> > psychologists have been studying for decades how they spread and what
> > can be done to slow them down when they are false. They've also
> > devoted a great deal of research to the proximal question of which
> > pieces of information are most likely to stick out in our minds - the
> > things we're most likely to pass on to a friend.
>
> > One key factor here is the overwhelming lack of concrete information
> > about what happened in the moments immediately before Zimmerman killed
> > Martin. This makes the story inherently vulnerable to rumors,
> > according to Rochester Institute of Technology psychologist Nick
> > DiFonzo, an expert on rumor research and the author of The Watercooler
> > Effect: A Psychologist Explores the Extraordinary Power of Rumors.
> > "Whenever there's a little bit of uncertainty and it doesn't seem to
> > make sense, people get very surprised when they hear this story, and
> > they're wondering, `Well, what? What happened? Why did it happen?
> > That's crazy,' " he said. "They'll try to fill it in with rumors,
> > speculation."
>
> > We are inherently bothered by an incomplete story. When we see holes
> > in a narrative, we do whatever we can to plug them with the tools we
> > have at hand. Rumors are an excellent solution, because they can be
> > shaped to fit any gap that we come across. "It's hard to stay in an
> > ambiguous mode and accept uncertainty," DiFonzo says. The more
> > clear-cut a given story, the less likely it is to spawn rumors. "If
> > people will supply some harder facts, it's harder to wiggle," he adds.
> > "You have to wiggle around the new facts." In the Martin case, there
> > is an enormity of wiggle room.
>
> > So what makes a rumor likely to go viral? Partly, how easy it is for
> > us to process cognitively - the extent to which it fits what we
> > already "know." For many Americans, unfortunately, what's been
> > revealed about Martin - that he was suspended for writing graffiti and
> > being found with an empty marijuana bag, and that he was found with
> > women's jewelry (which he wasn't disciplined for) - fits right into
> > their preexisting notion that young black men are predisposed to
> > criminality.
>
> > So even though these details have zero bearing on the facts of this
> > case, they are passed around excitedly by likeminded members of online
> > social networks as though they explain something.
> > Another potentially powerful mechanism here is the so-called
> > just-world hypothesis. Just as we have a powerful urge to complete
> > stories with missing parts, we have a similarly powerful urge to see
> > the world - and the stories we hear as we traverse it - as having some
> > underlying force for justice guiding everything.
>
> > "People are strongly motivated to believe that the world is just -
> > that people get what they deserve," wrote Danny Oppenheimer, a
> > professor of psychology at Princeton and the author of Democracy
> > Despite Itself: Why a System That Shouldn't Work at All Works So Well,
> > in an email. "So people want to believe that a victim deserved it, or
> > brought it on him/herself."
>
> > It's an understandable impulse, but not always a helpful one. As
> > science writer Jonah Lehrer put it, "we often rationalize injustices
> > away, so that we can maintain our naïve belief in a just world."
> > In this case, the idea of an unarmed teenager simply getting gunned
> > down leaves our brains itching, in a sense, because it reeks of
> > injustice. One way to scratch that itch is to decide that Martin did
> > something to bring about the shooting - even if there's no evidence to
> > suggest this is the case.
>
> > "If Trayvon was dangerous, then people can preserve the illusion that
> > the world is just - if Trayvon was just an innocent kid, then that
> > forces us to confront a harsh world that is psychologically much
> > harder to deal with," wrote Oppenheimer.
>
> > So it isn't quite right to say that those who are convinced Trayvon
> > must have been the instigator are necessarily racist. Rather, they're
> > trying to make sense of a tragedy, and the most straightforward,
> > cognitively easy way to do so might be to assume that Martin must have
> > done something that explains Zimmerman's deadly aggression.
>
> > Neither of these two stories - one in which an innocent black teenager
> > was shot because of a neighborhood-watch volunteer's overly assertive
> > "policing," and the other in which a black teenager was shot and
> > killed in part because he was acting suspiciously or aggressively - is
> > a particularly happy tale. Neither calibrates with our highest ideals
> > of justice. But one comes closer than the other, and that's why, in
> > some quarters, it's the more popular of the two.
> > None of this is to say that race doesn't play a huge role in how we
> > sift and filter information and decide which pieces of it to pass on.
>
> > Psychologists have known for a long time that racial stereotypes and
> > cues can powerfully affect how we process information and weigh
> > evidence - for our brains, race is a "shortcut" by which to quickly
> > make sense of new information. It's one of many ways in which our
> > quickest, most reactionary forms of thinking don't necessarily provide
> > good results. So it's unfortunate that these stereotypes are so
> > pernicious, because our brains are, in key ways, predisposed toward
> > racial prejudice, and this fact has never been clearer than in the
> > Martin case.
>
> > It's also worth pointing out that Martin's supporters are just as
> > prone to certain biases in how they handle the massive amount of
> > information about this case circulating online. They're more likely to
> > circulate pictures of Zimmerman in which he looks scary, and to pass
> > along the revelations that he had previous run-ins with the law,
> > allegedly involving violence.
>
> > It's a tough thing to admit, but very few of us are as interested in
> > objective reality as we think we are - we all have some sort of agenda
> > when we parse emotionally loaded information.
>
> > "When it comes to deciding what we believe is true," Oppenheimer wrote
> > in his email, "whether or not it's actually true isn't nearly as
> > important as whether we want to believe it."
>
> >http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/10744-focus-why-is-tra...
>
> > --
> > Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> > Have a great day,
> > Tommy
>
> > --
> > Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> > Have a great day,
> > Tommy- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
--
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