The Importance of Context

I'd like to tell you a short story about John. John is a husband and a father of two young children. John has everything going for him... a very successful business he loves, beautiful healthy family, more friends than he can count, and he's just an all around happy guy.

Yesterday John drove his car to a remote wooded area and blew his brains out.

How could this be? It just doesn't make sense! Why would a guy take his own life when he is the envy of almost everybody he knows? The answer lies in the events leading up to that horrible pulling of a trigger. Three hours prior to his seemingly irrational decision, John backed his pickup down the driveway , completely unaware that his sweet little 3 year old daughter was making chalk drawings in the shade of the tailgate... she died almost instantly.

Even though suicide is an irrational decision in most situations, can you see how John's decision makes a little more sense in this scenario? If I was to leave out that event from the story, your perception of his suicide would be completely different... the only good guess for his suicidal motive would be some sort of mental break hat was out of his control. But in reality, the event prior to his decision was not just important to his motive, it was everything.

Come on Rick, what's the point?!

My point is that full context is ALWAYS required to get the full story, to get the full truth... anything less than full context is absolutely meaningless.

My main problem with the media, and the protesters especially, is that so many are ignoring the full context of the story... not allegations but actual facts.

Michael Brown was reportedly planning on going to college and starting his own future. He graduated from high school, which in itself is a very liberating and exiting experience for every teenager. Michael had an entire future ahead of him so it made no sense to anyone that he would decide to fight with a police officer and actually punch him in the face and try to get to his gun through the cop's window.

So is it really not important to know the events that preceded the fatal encounter? Again, those events were everything imo and the story is really a dishonest distortion without including those events...it's called motive.

Nobody has disputed with any credible argument that Michael Brown indeed robbed a convenience store and then pushed the owner away like a school yard bully does to a weakling. And if you watch that video, it's hard to imagine that was the first time Michael used his great size and strength to get what he wanted or to make a point.

"So what?" you say, "that doesn't mean he caused his own death". Well, what else makes more sense? Michael was on the path to freedom and everybody here knows how that felt when we were young and dreaming of what lied ahead of us. But when Michael was confronted by the cop, he had to realize that he was 18, which meant that he was an adult, which meant that convenience store robbery equates to a loss of freedom in the short term and a huge loss of opportunity and a bright future in the long term. The decisions Michael was faced with were limited and none of them were good, but only one decision would keep that bright future alive... surrender may not have been a viable option in his mind. So if he was determined not to go to jail and have an adult criminal record, why would he not use his size and strength, once again, to fix a prior mistake? It worked out well for him during the robbery, so why just give up a future when you have the power to keep it?

Sorry for the long post, but I've been sick with nothing to do, and I'm sick of hearing this story told by the Michael Brown defenders in half-context.

How far am I off here?

www.cnn.com/2014/11/29/us/ferguson-natio...index.html?hpt=hp_t4

ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE(CONTEXT)......long read, but an in depth look at race history....

homeagain wrote: www.cnn.com/2014/11/29/us/ferguson-natio...index.html?hpt=hp_t4

ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE(CONTEXT)......long read, but an in depth look at race history....

Sorry Home, I didn't read the story because this thread has nothing to do with racism or profiling. I'm trying to make a point about looking at an incident from start to finish without leaving out important details. If racism had anything at all to do with this story, I have yet to see a scrap of evidence... and if there was evidence, you know Holder will be pursuing it, which I doubt he will.

So what do you think about my topic... am I off base anywhere?

THEN nothing to discuss, because the link is CONTEXT...(but you have declined to view the "whole
story"....which is unfortunate,BUT a prevailing societal attitude)JMO

Perspective is recognizing that young black men who commit strong arm robberies, consume illicit drugs and are the aggressors in assaults against other citizens and police officers share nothing in common, other than skin color that is, with Emmett Till. That's perspective.

Perspective is recognizing that wackadoodles do what wackadoodles do.

350.org/how-racial-justice-is-integral-t...ting-climate-crisis/

"To me, the connection between militarized state violence, racism, and climate change was common-sense and intuitive."

And this:

So a starting point is for those of us in white America to wipe away any self-satisfaction about racial progress. Yes, the progress is real, but so are the challenges. The gaps demand a wrenching, soul-searching excavation of our national soul, and the first step is to acknowledge that the central race challenge in America today is not the suffering of whites.

www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/opinion/sunda...ention-not-less.html

homeagain wrote: THEN nothing to discuss, because the link is CONTEXT...(but you have declined to view the "whole
story"....which is unfortunate,BUT a prevailing societal attitude)JMO

I don't even have to read the article o know that it's about feelings and past racial injustices. Those things have absolutely NOTHING to do with what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the full context of the facts, not feelings. If you can show me some factual evidence in THIS CASE that points to racism, I'd be happy to debate your points.

The gaps demand a wrenching, soul-searching excavation of our national soul, ...

Oh, puleeeze ...

ZHawke wrote: And this:

So a starting point is for those of us in white America to wipe away any self-satisfaction about racial progress. Yes, the progress is real, but so are the challenges. The gaps demand a wrenching, soul-searching excavation of our national soul, and the first step is to acknowledge that the central race challenge in America today is not the suffering of whites.

www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/opinion/sunda...ention-not-less.html

You and Home are doing a good job of deflecting from facts to feelings... again, NOT what this thread is about. If you were to HONESTLY tell the entire story of what happened with Brown and Wilson on that day, feelings and past injustices that have nothing to do with this specific incident. And if you were Wilson, you would hope and expect that a jury would only be given the FACTS of that day in full context, and not have to defend against the acts of others in the past that you never even met.

FACTS.