🚀 go-pugleaf

On 27/03/2012 8:46 AM, DanS wrote:
> Metspitzer<Kilowatt@charter.net>  wrote in
> news:vmp1n7dp8ji8pq8b1vv0v4fm6184ctoc9u@4ax.com:
>
>> On Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:27:40 -0400, Wolf K
>> <wekirch@sympatico.ca>  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/03/26/tr
>>> ayvon-martins-psychological-killer-why-we-see-guns-that-aren
>>> t-there/
>>>
>>> Wolf K.
>>
>> When George Zimmerman saw Trayvon Martin walking down the
>> street in Sanford, Florida, he quickly assumed that the
>> Black, hoodie-clad teenager was carrying a weapon.
>>
>> He then pulled out his gun and fatally shot the young
>> student, whose hands were gripping nothing more than a bag
>> of Skittles.
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> --------------------- Wow.........that is totally NOT how
>> it happened.
>>
>
> You're right.
>
> I saw a video on Youtube of some Foxnews like broadcast where
> the people said, "Zimmerman saw a black kid walking down the
> sidewalk and didn't like it, so he decided to shoot him."

The spins on the story are irrelevant to the point of the Sci Am 
article, which is that racial stereotypes influence our 
decisions/actions below the level of conscious awareness, and thus do in 
fact result in more black deaths (among other things, such as putting 
spin on a story).

One of dearest illusions is that our choices and decisions are conscious 
and rational. They aren't. At best we may have time to review the 
choices our subconscious serves up. But even the decision to review a 
decision comes from the subconscious, which must have time and 
inclination to make it. IOW, it's only when we have sufficient time 
between the decision-trigger and the action that we _may_ be able to 
second-guess ourselves and act more rationally. But if we are in the 
grip of an emotion that's pushing us in certain direction, it's unlikely 
that the subconscious will serve up the decision to second-guess 
ourselves. Reason calculates, emotion selects.

IMO, Zimmerman was gripped by such an emotion, which made it essentially 
impossible for him to consider the possibility that the hooded figure 
was a) not an intruder; and b) seeing him as the aggressor. Some recent 
data suggests that now he is well aware that he made some bad and 
unreasonable decisions, but it's too late, unfortunately.

And that ends my comments on this issue.

Wolf K.