Category: Perspective

Here’s How Differently The Media Covers An Assault Before And After Learning It Was Done By A Cop

January 22, 2015

“The next day, the police released images of the attacker and asked the public for help identifying him. The New York Daily News ran the story in their typically sensationalist way. They described the man as a “brute” and a “thug” and described the incident in lurid detail and begged for readers to help ID the coward who attacked the woman and “ran away smiling.”

The problem? The man turned out to be an off-duty NYPD police officer and the New York Daily News, like almost every other media outlet in the country — liberal or conservative — has a completely different set of rules for covering police officers accused of committing a crime. By the next day, the story had been cleaned up.”

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/01/04/heres-how-differently-the-media-covers-an-assault-before-and-after-learning-it-was-done-by-a-cop/

Rational and Irrational Thought: The Thinking That IQ Tests Miss

January 22, 2015

Why smart people sometimes do dumb things

“No doubt you know several folks with perfectly respectable IQs who repeatedly make poor decisions. The behavior of such people tells us that we are missing something important by treating intelligence as if it encompassed all cognitive abilities. I coined the term ‘dysrationalia’ (analogous to ‘dyslexia’), meaning the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence, to draw attention to a large domain of cognitive life that intelligence tests fail to assess. Although most people recognize that IQ tests do not measure every important mental faculty, we behave as if they do. We have an implicit assumption that intelligence and rationality go together—or else why would we be so surprised when smart people do foolish things?”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rational-and-irrational-thought-the-thinking-that-iq-tests-miss/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email

The Science of Why Cops Shoot Young Black Men

January 22, 2015

“You think of yourself as a person who strives to be unprejudiced, but you can’t control these split-second reactions. As the milliseconds are being tallied up, you know the tale they’ll tell: When negative words and black faces are paired together, you’re a better, faster categorizer. Which suggests that racially biased messages from the culture around you have shaped the very wiring of your brain.”

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/science-of-racism-prejudice

Writing Your Way to Happiness

January 22, 2015

“The concept is based on the idea that we all have a personal narrative that shapes our view of the world and ourselves. But sometimes our inner voice doesn’t get it completely right. Some researchers believe that by writing and then editing our own stories, we can change our perceptions of ourselves and identify obstacles that stand in the way of better health.”

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/writing-your-way-to-happiness/

The real American Sniper was a hate-filled killer. Why are simplistic patriots treating him as a hero?

January 21, 2015

“There is no room for the idea that Kyle might have been a good soldier but a bad guy; or a mediocre guy doing a difficult job badly; or a complex guy in a bad war who convinced himself he loved killing to cope with an impossible situation; or a straight-up serial killer exploiting an oppressive system that, yes, also employs lots of well-meaning, often impoverished, non-serial-killer people to do oppressive things over which they have no control. Or that Iraqis might be fully realised human beings with complex inner lives who find joy in food and sunshine and family, and anguish in the murders of their children. Or that you can support your country while thinking critically about its actions and its citizenry. Or that many truths can be true at once.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/06/real-american-sniper-hate-filled-killer-why-patriots-calling-hero-chris-kyle

Gavrilo Princip: hero or villain?

January 21, 2015

“As Balkan countries prepare to mark the start of the first world war, history books show widely different interpretations.

“As the centenary approaches, there is little hope that rival ethnic and political groups in the Balkans will find a shared view, said history professor Zijad Sehic. ‘We will never have agreement on this issue. The views are too far apart. There will never be a common truth.'”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/06/gavrilo-princip-hero-villain-first-world-war-balkan-history

I have used this article in class. Here is the adapted handout I’ve used in class.

Princip Article Short

Princip WS

Princip WS notes

History Article Princip w Notes