Dr. Forbush Thinks

Stereotypes are created when a group of people gathers together to support an issue, purpose or even a culture. These people come together and a casual observer will notice the things that are common about the group of people gathered.

That’s a generalized statement, but the specific example might be the Scottish Games. People who go to the Scottish games have some interest in Scotland and the culture of Scotland. Most of them are likely to be of Scottish descent. If you casually observed the group as a whole you might come to some generalities of the people who profess to be Scottish and how the general Scot behaves at these games. Some of the stereotypes might be valid, like the strange contests that they hold. You couldn’t argue that a stereotypical young Scotsman longs to toss the caber, a long log about the size of a telephone pole. Of course, not all young Scotsmen have trained to toss a caber, so it would be wrong to generalize that all young Scotsmen toss cabers at these events.

The point that I am trying to make is that the reason for the gathering certainly has an effect on which people are drawn to an event. Some stereotypes are certainly valid when talking about the gathering of people. Other stereotypes certainly are not valid, but they get propagated anyway.

So, when I read the Sunday morning San Jose Mercury news I wasn’t surprised by this little incident.

 

“At the pro-Bush rally, there were some heated moments when two members of Protest Warrior, a group that frequently holds counter protests to anti-war rallies, walked in with a sign that read "Say No to War - Unless a Democrat is President."

 

 

“Many Bush supporters only saw the top of the sign and believed the men were war protesters, so they began shouting and chasing the pair out. One man tore up their signs. When Will Marean of Minneapolis kept repeating that he was on the Bush side and tried to explain Protest Warrior's mission, one Bush supporter shook his hand and apologized.”

 

 

 

It is “funny” that a group of people would gather together in the name of violence, with a pre-emptive strike mentality and that mentality plays itself out in this manner. A guy that is certainly lacking in the skills of communication created a sign that required a bit of extra thought to understand. The group of people reading it became outraged before they thought about it. The poor guy is pleading that he is on the pro-War side of the argument, and he is forced into a battle with his like-minded colleagues. This incident seems to be a metaphor for the conflict that they are supporting.

The US didn’t spend time considering the situation, just like the pro-War group didn’t spend time thinking about what was written on the sign. The Bush administration cut off communications with Iraq, just like the pro-War group decided not to talk to the guy with the poorly written sign. The Bush administration decided to attack preemptively, just like the crowd decided to attack this guy and rip up his sign. The results in bot cases were the same. The reasons for the attack were nonexistent. The lesson in both cases is that a little communication goes a long way…





politics