Think about who you would believe. First, there’s a person whose TV and newspaper pictures show in various scenes: in a graduation gown, with earphones doing everyday things, and among friends and family. The other is shown alone, no family or friends around him, coming out of a police station or simply facing forward, almost in mug-shot pose except for the lack of numbers across his chest. You see these pictures again and again. Unconsciously, if you’re like most people, you want to side with the everyday guy. Especially if he’s a kid and the other guy is a cop. Add in the details that the kid is Black and the cop works for a police force with a bad record of treatment toward Blacks.
That’s what we’ve been seeing. And that’s the way the media typically presents situations, deciding which side to present in a better light. Then we wonder why people get upset and riot when the media bad-guy doesn’t get what we think he deserves.
I don’t know if Officer Wilson was criminally wrong. Nobody knows for sure. Only the grand jury has seen most of the evidence. And they didn’t clear Wilson of any wrongdoing; they only said there wasn’t enough evidence to bring him to trial. I know only that the media, which has a duty to be unbiased and has failed that duty–is partly to blame for the damage, destruction, and disrupted lives due to the current riots and all other riots they’ve manipulated us into.
