MICHAEL BROWN AND DARREN WILSON AS TEACHERS

Once again, the Michael Brown incident brought police officer conduct to public attention. Opinions were flying about the correctness of what happened before most of us knew what took place; in fact, most of us still do not know what happened. The certainty the people felt in being correct about their opinions amazed me.

Generally, the right wing pundits fell behind the police officer while the left wing majority fell behind Michael Brown. Perhaps that is what is wrong with our society; we seem ready to express opinions about things we don’t know anything about and are too lazy to find out or can’t find out. In the case of the Michael Brown shooting, the press, hence, the public, could not find out because the police were not willing to release what they knew and what they did release they slanted. The question I have is on what did these people base their opinion?

Most of us never heard about two psychological experiments but they apparently are rather famous among psychologists. One is the Milgram experiment the other is the Stanford prison experiment (SPE) or the Zimbardo Experiment. The Milgram experiment deals with obedience to authority and the Zimbardo experiment was designed to induce disorientation, depersonalization and deindividualization in the participants as it relates to guards and prisoner. To me, both experiments seem pertinent to policing, in particular concerning police and prisoner behavior as it occurs on initial contact in the street as occurred between police officer Wilson, and Michael Brown.

The experiments have demonstrated there is extreme viability in the expected response to authority and the attitudes that develop between the protagonists. An additional unknown and perhaps the biggest variable is the pre-existing attitude of both the police officer and person they are confronting. In other words, the police officer has a psychologically challenging job but so do the people on the street.

Everything about police indicates they have authority; they work for the public and are carry a gun or other weapons, and trained to “protect and serve”. In addition, the people show them respect. They are part of the moral order; people treat them that way and they respond in kind—a mutual understanding. The Milgram experiments demonstrated that people sometimes respond without objecting even to outlandish demands by people with authority.  The Zimbardo results were the most surprising in as much as they indicated given authority, some people tend to allow that authority to override their humanity; they can be down right cruel just because they have the authority. Even more surprising is that they can reverse roles; the most mistreated persons can be the cruelest. Now enter the racial element into the situation. There are those who believe they are superior to others because of skin color or ethic or religious affiliation; a dark skinned police officer mistreats a white prisoner or visa versa. Enter in the experience; police officers who have been dealing with criminal elements everyday for years look at a suspicious person differently than you or I do. Watch experienced police officers interact with the public; their caution is visible in every move. On the other side watch, watch dark skinned young people interact with a police officers; their subservience is also viable with every move.

Enter innate political propensities in to the argument—I am aware that some do not believe anything at all about politics is innate so will reject this argument. Nonetheless, group loyalty is a conservative trait. Moral order is a conservative trait. Fairness and equal treatment of everyone are liberal trait. Disciple is more important to a conservative than kindness, which is more important to liberals. Now go through this implied checklist and answer the question fo which side are you on in this debate, “why did the right wing support Wilson and the left support Michael Brown without any information they need to really make an accurate judgment?”  I will not hold you to any answer once the facts are known but I hope in the end most of us will all be in agreement; what ever it is settled—for everyone to agree is beyond reason. If we chose, we can learn from all of this, sadly, it takes a lot to move our innate mountains.

   

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