Perception can also be described as the colored lens that one views the world with based on his knowledge and understanding…How one sees or interprets the world can also be attributed to one’s cumulative experiences and expectations. The potency of perception should not be underestimated because a person’s mental impression can and will affect how that person navigates through life in both business and personal arenas.
We are all familiar with military warfare i.e. soldiers, guns and tanks; but warfare is waged on several different fronts. Psychological warfare, and its uses however, are not as universally recognized as a platoon of soldiers, but are subtler and twice as potent. One form of psychological warfare is propaganda, which can be used to shape perception (albeit a skewed one) to satisfy an agenda. Propaganda is the subtle manipulation or swaying the opinion of a group of people using the arts: flyers, posters, or cartoons. Music and movies are also used to reinforce an agenda as well. Language, media coverage, and statistics are very powerful agents used to mold a stance or viewpoint. The tactics of propaganda and marketing can be used interchangeably. (Take a closer look at rival cell phone companies who compete with each other using catch phrases, slogans, and imagery). On a larger and more dynamic level, perception can affect a group of people based on the same premise of cumulative experiences, ideals and expectations just as it would a singular individual. For example, African Americans, how the world perceives them and more importantly, how they perceive themselves via propaganda and negative perception has had an unfortunate impact which, includes but not limited to: negative attitudes, self loathing, and a shortened lifespan. Why is there a negative perception of African Americans both domestically and globally? How do we challenge or better yet change the unsavory but popular perceptions that literally plague the African American community to death?
During colonialism or the slave trade, African people were bartered for, bought, sold and were treated like property exchange. Economic gain, and free labor were the main catalysts behind the slave trade. How do groups of people (Portuguese and British traders) justify exchanging human lives for money or goods as property? Propaganda was used to create a negative perception of Africans’ as subhuman, therefore African people were not subject to the same rights as British people or anyone else for that matter. Character defamation, generalizations, and stereotypes poisoned the minds of those whom the Portuguese and British sold slaves to, all while lining their pockets. Education and morality were placed on the back burner as the Portuguese and British started to believe their own propaganda (possibly as a defense mechanism). Once in America, Africans were played against each other: House Slaves against, Field Slaves, Light Skinned Slaves against Dark skinned Slaves, as well as Male Slaves vs. Female Slaves. Laws were made to keep slaves uneducated and dependent upon their masters for food, shelter, and guidance. After being bombarded with a combination of propaganda and cruel reality, African Americans started to internalize that hatred of themselves and each other. Their perception became reality, with every crack of a whip, or lynching. The negative perception drove home the point, which was, African American lives meant nothing and their fate writhed in the grip of their tormentor’s hands.
Whether by political cartoon, derogatory characterizations such as a black face, or a public execution, the negative perception of African Americans has gone viral long before the web existed. The British did their job well, as it is a known fact that African American lives are not worth the birth certificates that they are printed on. If you think that we have grown civil as a society and that there are no more negative characterizations or public executions, all you have to do is turn to your local evening news. Our exceptional leaders: Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X were publically executed. The police beat our brother Rodney King, in public. Our sons, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant III, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice were on the business end of years of negative perception and propaganda. Although the collective triggers were pulled by law enforcement (or a member of a neighborhood watch) the hand behind these senseless murders was negative perception. The perceptions that, darker skinned lives are ripe for the taking beginning at age 12 (Tamir Rice). The perception that no punishment will come to those who take the lives of darker skinned individuals because they are not worth the paper that the acquittals are written on. The perception that African American’s won’t put aside their differences and band together to change and stop fueling propaganda and negative perception. Unfortunately, this notion of negative perception translates to big business in the penal system just as it did during the slave trade.
An eye-opening example of statistics that were used to further an agenda of negative perception was used against an entire community in the Bronx in August of 2014. In a neighborhood in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, the crime statistics of felony assaults of Rikers Island were lumped together with the statics of neighborhood precinct 41. The skewed accounting provided plenty of grief for Bronx police as well as residents, who complained that the numbers fed a misperception about the neighborhood’s safety and unfairly inflated their insurance rates. Insurance companies analyze long-term crime trends when calculating premiums. A simple manipulation of data (propaganda) created a negative perception of the neighborhood, which most likely caused strained relationships with the community and law enforcement. Meanwhile, the insurance companies profited from this misinterpretation. (Sound familiar)? If a simple rearrangement of numbers can affect an entire community, what effect could a well-orchestrated properly planned and implemented propaganda campaign do? The answer resides in the current state of African Americans, and anyone who is perceived as such…The end result is loss of respect/self respect, dignity, and most importantly loss of life without recourse.
As our unarmed fathers, brothers and sons are routinely being killed with more frequency, do we take up arms and fight back using traditional warfare, or do we start our own propaganda campaign? In order to change a movement, the tune in which the movement moves must be changed. However that happens is up to us, all of us. One thing is clear, negative perception fueled by propaganda does kill. The question is how do we shift the agenda and change the skewed perception of African Americans from a negative one, to one that values the historic contributions that have made not only this country, but also this world a better place to live in.
the introspective 