What Causes Someone to Perceive One Thing When an Entirely Different Thing is Happening?

So originally I had this lined up to be one of the first blog posts, for whatever reason that didn't happen, but here it finally is.

It all started when I read this article titled "I Was Taking Pictures of my Daughters. A Stranger Thought I was Exploiting Them" I've linked the article there for you, but essentially it's the story of an interracial family, a white couple had adopted two girls from China, and at the time the event occurred they were 16 and 17, young women. The father was taking pictures of his girls on the deck of the ferry en route to their annual vacation spot, and they were doing so for a while, trying to get the perfect shot. Then a random man comes by and asks the girls if they are alright. It took them a while to understand, but then they realized that the stranger thought the girls were being exploited and photos were for something not very great. 

It was then revealed that the man works for the Department of Homeland Security. (This is going to be part of something I discuss later)

What to question here is of course the role of race and racial profiling Had they not been an interracial family it's unlikely the man would have perceived the picture taking to be suspicious. 

And for me, it also seems like a good example of the separate/different/other mentality that race, for whatever reason, still evokes. From what I read in the article, it seems like the automatic assumption taken from the presence of different races was that different race = different and cannot equal a group that's together. 

Lately, in my probe into race and what it still means in society today, I've come to realize that it seems to be some kind of insurmountable barrier of difference. 

Race is likely the first thing a person notices about

someone else and yeah it makes sense that there's an initial thought of difference, but it almost seems like to a lot of people, the difference in race almost negates any other similarities. 

It isn't a really prominent in-your-face thing of course, it's more under the surface, manifesting as Microaggressions. 

For an example I'll turn to the way non-white people in Canada or the US are sometimes told to "go back to where they're from" even though that person might be a 5th generation immigrant who speaks perfect English and the only tie they have with the country their family's from is the way their features look. 

As well, I think it demonstrates how, though supposedly interracial marriages/families are on the rise, families different from the traditional mother and father of the same race who have a baby together dynamic are still often not perceived as what they are (as in families and not just people  who just happen to be in the same place/people involved in a sinister situation.).

But more than, that I think this situation that befell this interracial family illustrates how broken our trust in our fellow humans are. 

The author of the article wrote a question near the end that has become the title of this post: What causes someone to perceive one thing when an entirely different thing is happening? 

My answer? I think it's simply: because we've been taught to; because we've taught ourselves to. 

We just hear about so many negative things that other people are doing - this person was stabbed today, that person was shot; this conflict has killed XX thousand people, that terrorist group is threatening to do XYZ. We're constantly bombarded by awful news, is it a wonder that we are so suspicious and unable to trust in the benevolence of our fellow humans? 

The world we live in, the way people act and treat others has caused us to be very paranoid and suspicious of others' actions. We feel this need to "protect ourselves" from others. 

A perfect example is something that happened to me over the summer. I met a friendly old man one day when I was out walking around in my neighbourhood and the whole time he was talking to me I kept on thinking, "Oh my gosh what am I doing? What if he's a murderor / pedophile / psychopath / some other type of person that might mean me harm?" 

It turned out one of my friends actually knew him and she assured me he was harmless. Afterward I felt really saddened that the world has made it so the first thing we think when we meet a stranger is that they may harm us. 

And the thing is, I'm just a teenager. 

I haven't been exposed to as many malicious actions as an adult would have, and what I've seen is definitely nowhere near what the man that worked for the DHS has. Yes, he did not handle the situation very well since he didn't account for the possibility of things not being the way he perceived them to be, but can you really blame him? 

Working in the field he does, he must have see a LOT of people doing terrible things to others, and people in fields like that must have a particularly warped perception of how awful people really are to others (And it really isn't as bad, apparently we might just be in the most peaceful time of human existence) because they see malevolence more frequently and possibly to a greater degree than most people. 

It's like when you first find out about something you hadn't previously known about, all of a sudden you spot it everywhere, even in places where you hadn't realized it was before. Or when you're really familiar with something, you see it really easily. 

We are programmed with a strong will to survive, with that comes with fear for the welfare of ourselves. And, just in general I think we are creatures filled with fear -- we fear the unknown and we fear what may hurt us and those we care about. 

Add in all the terrible things we keep hearing about that other people are doing, that makes us start to fear others, and because we're so bombarded by bad things that are happening, I think that's led our brains to constantly make connections to the malicious when (at least I hope ) most of the time what's happening is actually benign. 

And if we take it a step further, maybe we even fear ourselves, because we ask "Well what's the difference between me and that person doing terrible things? Could I do terrible things like that?" and the lack of a biological difference that would render it impossible for you to be as awful as "them" might disquiet you. 

Of course, most people don't like to feel that way, most people would rather the problem be solely outside of them, most people want something or someone to blame. That way, you can get a weapon, take self defense or whatever and "protect yourself". It's a heck of a lot easier than grappling with the darkness inside of you, than explore your deepest darkest parts.   

So in addition to our already uneasy feelings toward others, we might try to project our own darkness onto others. 

However, I think it's important to try and figure

yourself out, because it's only then that you can change yourself for the better. If you recognize you are probably capable of doing awful things you'll realize something you might consider doing as awful BEFORE you do it so you can prevent it from happening. 

If we want society to be better, we need parts - people - that are as good as they can be. 

So moral of the story, things aren't always as they seem to be, check your biases and if you choose to do a great thing and try not to be a bystander, just try to be sensitive and approach things in a way that allow you to be wrong while causing minimal damage. Recognize that we are all human, for better and for worse, but you don't have to let the worse define you. 

As always, please hit those g+1 buttons if you like this post (hit the one at the bottom of the post)/blog (hit the one at the very top of the page), and I'd love to hear people's opinions on this, please share them with me in the comments. 

As well a quick Poll: Do people prefer long posts like this one or shorter ones such as the few I put up before this one? Or should I have a mix of both? Tell me that in the comments too. :) 

- Maggs