Emotional Manipulation

2 words I wish someone would've said to me in 2020.

This is a tragedy all around. 2 people are dead and shouldn't be.

That is where most of us want the sentence to end, but the reality is we want to prevent more deaths like this. In order to prevent them, we have to look at the whole picture and it is incomplete if we don't look at the narrative fueling the organized protests. It is dangerous repetition of propaganda that incites citizens to get involved and impede operations, assault agents, and get injured or, tragically, killed. It is not solely dangerous propaganda that has caused these deaths, but it is an element. Although, I'd argue Renee Good and Alex Pretti should not have ever been there and wouldn't have been without the messaging, but that is my opinion and speculation.

Let me give an example of this emotional manipulation I am seeing.

Yesterday, someone shared a well articulated post about how enough was enough. They were sick of being told they have toxic empathy and they aren't falling for propaganda, but taking issue with policies, proceeding to list a few policies to support their point.

One of the ‘policies’ they cited was how Minnesota police are being racially profiled off duty by ICE agents.

Actually the sentence was this: “It's ICE being authorized to stop Black and Brown folks (including citizens), hold guns in their faces, and demand to see proof of citizenship. (We know this is happening because a Minnesota Police Chief says his own off duty cops are experiencing it).”

Look at that sentence alone. It is inciting anger and stirring our emotions because who wouldn't or shouldn't be mad about that, right?

A few issues.

The sentence begs the question: who is authorizing ICE to make these stops and appear threatening? The reader assumes they know, or assumes someone is authorizing that behavior. It is an attempt to undermine authority by making it sound corrupt and racially motivated. It is also making a sweeping claim that authorization is happening which is a stretch from the story.

I asked this person what sources they had to share this content. They said everything could be Google searched. I challenged this particular quote and said if you don't have multiple confirmed sources of something like this, besides people repeating the original story, then that is a dangerous claim to make. That is the propaganda piece.

This racial profiling accusation is meant to dehumanize ICE. Then we have the problem of the source. The police chief is not an unbiased party. The local governments are not unbiased parties, really no one is. They're coming to the table with an agenda and we have to ask which one. Is it for law and order? Peace? You would hope as a police chief, but making accusations like this already gives us an indication of his interests. If that is an unfair assessment of him, then so is the racial profiling accusation. No one can judge motive. I think he is probably thinking he is doing the right thing in standing for his people, but did he imagine the way the media would latch onto this instance and turn it into evidence for all ICE being evil and racist, thereby justifying their villainization and citizen involvement? No, he probably didn't.

Second issue, unless there are multiple confirmed reports of evidence of this, we have no idea what someone's motivation is for being stopped and asked for documentation. One cannot just assume it is racial profiling without much more information on when this incident or incidents happened, although it sounds like one time is all that was being referenced and we have zero other details except this person's claim as to what happened here. The police chief says she tried to record it and the phone was knocked out of her hand. It's a big jump to assume we know everything about the situation. Should we assume as a law enforcement officer, she was acting in an upright way? If we don't make the assumption of the ICE agent, then we can't make it based on her job, which is all we know.

Obviously racial profiling would be a serious and egregious issue, but to say it is widespread, happening based on one incident we have no other confirmed facts or data points on to say if that is even true, is dangerous.

That is the part that we must pause our emotional reaction to and gather the facts first. I understand this is where George Floyd happened, though there was undoubtedly emotional manipulation in the aftermath of his death. I understand racial injustices have happened. I understand the suggestion that all of this is racially motivated by a racist party in power. I am suggesting we discern if these things are true to the best of our ability, which isn't lazily repeating stories.

We have to do this exercise for every post, tagline, every news title thrown our way. It is our responsibility, otherwise we just become echo chambers. It may seem unimportant, but this is how history has changed. Narratives. We are in a war for our thinking and we must refuse to be manipulated, by any side.

Yesterday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is not impossible to think it could happen again, but we shouldn't manufacture it.

The person posting this took issue with being labeled as having toxic empathy, but with the wrong part. The empathy is not the issue. It is toxic if based on lies and emotional manipulation that then causes us to act or think in a harmful way.

I hope this helps someone, we all have blind spots, including and especially me, but I do wish I would've understood the emotional manipulation tactic sooner.

JD Vance responding on this:

https://youtu.be/CXDWGBHKFdY?si=3HtH2x0U3JJ0nJCn

News report: https://youtu.be/dd6Gm163wjc?si=E52noorpSzT-w9Ul