Misperceptions

Every now and then someone in the newspaper would compare perception with statistics and tells us that our perception of reality is not entirely correct. What they usually forget is their parts in creating that perception. It is like looking at everywhere else but the eyes when there is a vision problem. Take yesterday’s article on the Vancouver Sun ‘Despite Public Perceptions’ for example. The article compares a survey result of Vancouverite’s perception of various ethnic groups’ responsibility for crime with police statistics. The result is of course shocking—while most people seems to put the blame on visual minorities, the vast majority of the arrests are Caucasian. This is very typical everywhere. The majority does most of the crime but the minority takes most of the blame. The article confesses a bit of confusion and uncertainty on the cause of this misperception. Many speculations are made but the most important is not considered. We perceive incorrectly, so the first place we should look at is the means with which we perceive. In this case, that apparatus is news—newspapers, television and radio. The medium with which these media use is language. In commonly used language, the majority is invisible. When the Hells Angels committed hideous crimes, they are not a white criminal gang. They are just simply a criminal gang. But when a South Asian kills another, it does not have to do just with gang activities but Indian gang activities. The Hells Angels are perceived as an evil external to the majority Caucasian ethnic group. The murdering South Asian kid is perceived as a defining representative of the South Asian ethnic group. The cause of this effect is the language used. Just as when the food of the majority is just food but the others are ‘ethnic’ food’, so is criminality. If the news media want to identify the ethnicity of criminals and criminal organizations, they should identify all ethnic groups including the majority with equal enthusiasms. That would help clear up our perception a great deal and makes it much closer to reality.