Perception filters reality

Have you ever bought a vehicle and, after you bought it, started noticing all the other identical vehicles?

Or maybe you fell in love with some outfit, bought it, and then saw others wearing the same thing and you hadn't noticed before?

This is perception. The cars were always there. Other people were wearing the same outfit before. The difference is our perception changes. 

Our minds are always filtering. There is too much information to process so we subconsciously generalize, distort, and/or delete information.

The media is guilty of this as well, particularly strongly biased media outlets like CNN, but I won't go into that in this post.

Our perception of "reality" is colored based on our awareness and belief systems. 

A couple weeks ago there was an incident of a "noose" in the garage of a NASCAR driver, who happened to be black. Of course there was suddenly a huge outcry of racism. Just about everyone was jumping to the conclusion that someone put the "noose" in the garage because of the driver's skin color.

Turns out the "noose" was there to make it easier to pull the garage door down. And it had been there for months.

But, everyone who has jumped on the racism bandwagon is all up in arms.

Since the racism protests and riots have increased over the past several weeks, more "nooses" have been discovered. 

A "noose" on a construction site was just a loop of rope (probably what is actually called an eye-splice), but for fear of being called racist the company took it down.

Another "noose" was discovered in a city park and the mayor and many citizens were all up in arms against that racist symbol. Turns out the rope was tied that way by a black person to be used as exercise equipment.

Too many people jump to conclusions before knowing even most of the facts. They see what they want to see. Even after being confronted with the real truth they will seldom back down and they'll defend their perception as being right.

Based on personal belief systems, people become certain of what they see. They "know" what it is they see and are often unwilling to consider anything that is contrary to their belief.

With the anti-racism bandwagon, it seems like most people have become hyper-aware of any possible or perceived symbol of racism. Kind of reminds me of the political correctness where people are afraid to express themselves for fear of offending some hyper-sensitive person or "social justice" movement.

It is interesting to me that liberal movements (LGBTQ, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, etc.) claim to be about open-mindedness and acceptance and allowing people to be and believe as they will. But anyone who speaks or expresses an opinion, thought, or anything that rubs against their beliefs, their perceptions, is labelled as biased, bigoted, racist, or some other undesirable thing. Liberals are not liberal when it comes to allowing others to express voices contrary to their position. Liberals are not about giving everyone the same rights and freedoms. They are about setting up groups that have more rights and liberties and protections than others than making everyone actually equal.