man is stupid.
On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 5:54 PM, Tommy News <tommysnews@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Does those who use race as a veiled excuse to smear the President of
> 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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Mark M. Kahle H.
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