A Lot Can Happen Between the Tweets
Black Woman Attacked During Pro-Trump Demonstration in DTLA
What was your gut reaction to the photo and headline above? What thoughts and words went through your mind? How and where did it hit your body? If you had to describe the situation in a court of law, what would you say?
When I first saw the photo and headline, it stopped me in my tracks. I saw a large White man, holding down a small Black woman, while other White men were preparing to attack her. I was terrified and sick to my stomach, feeling the anger and rage rising in my heart.
I opened the article from CBS Los Angeles. Berlinda Nib,o a 25-year old resident, was walking home with a friend when she was accosted by a group of pro-Trump demonstrators at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Downtown Los Angeles.
“It’s a shame that I can’t walk down my street anymore,” Nibo said. “I’m walking by and they’re yelling at me because of my color, calling me the N-word calling me the B-word, saying, ‘All lives matter, Black lives doesn’t (sic) matter.’” Ms. Nibo said she yelled back, and the crowd began following her, and then it turned violent. “He goes and smacks me in the face,” Ms. Nibo said of one of the demonstrators. “And then all of them start trying to jump me, and then people jump in.”
My rage toward White men, especially the toward the man with the red beard, grew deeper. Then, halfway through the article, Ms. Nibo noted how this man came to her rescue by wrapping his arms around her in protection.
“He was whispering in my ear going ‘You’re OK, I got you, I’ve got you, don’t do anything,” Ms. Nibo said. “If not for him stepping in at that moment, these people would have literally tried to kill me.”
In that moment, I felt a glimmer of hope. The negative narrative I had about this man was completely wrong. Who was he? Was he, like Ms. Nibo, a resident of the neighborhood and had just come upon this situation? Or was he a demonstrator who had a moment of decency?
Inspired by this revelation, I spent the evening writing a missive about my experiences of the week. I recalled the images I had seen from the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol of mostly unmasked, White Trump supporters. I remember thinking how evil and monstrous “those people” were. I reflected on my cardinal rule of honoring the humanity of all, and realized that I had othered and de-humanized the demonstrators in D.C., and by extension, the 74 million people who had voted for Trump.
Like the false narrative that I had held about the man with the red beard, I needed to pause and check my assumptions before forming opinions. Instead of unfriending my Trump-supporting relatives, friends, and colleagues, perhaps I could take time to recognize their humanity, find common ground, and see myself in them. I had done it before, and I could do it again.
It was a good missive! Titled “Pathways to Hope,” I put it in the queue at 11pm for distribution the following morning.
Then things got complicated.
I still didn’t know who this unsung hero with the red beard was, so before shutting down for the night, I did a quick search, and a new narrative emerged.
His name is Roy Ball, and he was indeed part of the demonstration. Once photos labeling him as a White Supremacist were posted on Twitter and Instagram, Mr. Ball’s employer tweeted that he is no longer employed at the company. Before his encounter with Ms. Nibo, Mr. Ball was seen in a video posted on Twitter shouting “minorities are nothing but pieces of s — t,” to another Woman of Color.
The narrative continued to shift. Other eyewitnesses said that, although it seemed as if Mr. Ball was trying to help Ms. Nibo, he was actually restraining her arms as she was being pepper sprayed and hit with flagpoles. Thus, she couldn’t protect herself or run away.
Another video posted on Twitter shows a friend of Ms. Nibo and a couple of bystanders entering the melee and escorting her across the street to the police line. Mr. Ball, along with the demonstrators, followed them, and tensions rose with the police present. As Ms. Nibo was being treated behind the police line, it looks like Mr. Ball tries to de-escalate the situation, saying “Let’s go, Back up,” as someone else says, “We got a bigger battle.”
Police officers across the street from the altercation did not intervene, and were soon diverted to another situation. LAPD tweeted a statement saying their “thorough investigation determined that the male in the photographs was not an aggressor as initial social media posts had claimed,” and that the man “appears to have been a good Samaritan” who “carried her away from the hostile crowd and let her go.” While LAPD made six arrests at the demonstration, none were associated with the incident involving Ms. Nibo.
Ms. Nibo countered her initial statement about Mr. Ball in an interview with Buzzfeed. “It did not help me,” she said. “It would’ve helped me more if he had made way for me to move out of there completely.”
A lot can happen between the tweets! At 3am, I pulled my missive from the queue, shut my computer down, and collapsed on the sofa.
So here I am, five hours later, deconstructing my original “Pathways to Hope” missive, and replacing it with this one. Here’s what I learned -
1.When you see a headline or image that activates you, try not to respond immediately. Take a moment to assess your gut reaction, the thoughts and words going through your mind, and how this information is impacting your body. Then give it 24 hours.
Remember the photo in 2019 of Nathan Phillips and Nick Sandmann that went viral?
Millions of people formed millions of narratives, overtaking the news cycle and our conversations at work and home. Within 24 hours, a larger set of facts emerged, but it was too late. People had already committed to their own versions of “the truth.”
Nick Sandmann sued The Washington Post for $250 million, and settled for an undisclosed sum. He was a featured speaker at the 2020 Republican National Convention. This photo made him an icon.
In the story of Berlinda Nibo and Roy Ball, I jumped too quickly and committed to a narrative before the greater story was revealed. In essence, my truth, that I intended to share with you, was not based on the facts, and I would have done you a disservice.
2. Beware of Social Media as your news source. We all do it. It’s so easy to turn to FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or TikTok for our news, even though we may know that these posts are sensational and often not based on facts. We also know that the algorithms in these apps bias the information you receive. That is how QAnon, Antifa, and others thrive.
These tech companies have finally taken some responsibility in this culture of dangerous misinformation by banning key figures, including Donald Trump. In my opinion, that’s a step in the right direction.
You may also consider limiting your social media to no more than three platforms, For instance, I use Instagram for personal use, LinkedIn for professional use, and FaceBook for personal and activist use. Contrary to the cheeky title of this missive, I cancelled my Twitter subscription years ago in protest to their refusal to censure the President in his tweets related to Charlottesville. And I leave TikTok to my kids.
3. Before you comment, dig into the content. I’m as guilty as anyone else — this habit of mindlessly scrolling through headlines and photos and dropping a comment. That might lead to another comment, and before you know it, we’re down that rabbit hole of virtual finger pointing, accusations, and cancel culture. My new rule is that if I don’t have the desire or bandwidth to check the facts and read the article, I will refrain from commenting. Think of all the time and grief that would save if we all adopted that rule.
4. Balance your media sources. It’s important to access factually-based, neutral media as your primary sources of news. Many of us are turning to more analytical/opinion or politically-biased news sources without realizing it (think MSNBC or Fox News). You can refer to this Media Bias Chart for perspective. According to this chart, the most neutral and factually-based media sources include: AP/Reuters, NPR, ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, BBC, and The Weather Channel. Other popular media sources like CNN are “less reliable” as they present a mix of fact reporting and analysis that skews slightly left. Fox News is lower on the chart, categorized as solidly right-focused, and providing “selective or incomplete stories with unfair persuasion.” MSNBC is categorized as solidly left-focused, with “high variation in reliability.”
With this information, my daily go-to’s are AP, NPR, NYT, BBC, and, of course, The Weather Channel. I rarely tune into CNN, and whenever I view Rachel Maddow, I also tune in to Fox News in search of other perspectives.
They say a picture (or a headline) is worth a thousand words. But a picture (and a headline) are snapshots of a single moment in time. Things happened before and after this moment that we cannot know unless we were actually there. And even if we were, we would only have our perspective.
Good pictures (and headlines) are meant evoke an emotion. By all means, allow yourself to feel something and be moved. But instead of reacting in the moment, pause and let the rest of the story fill in. That pause may bring perspective, and lead you toward a deeper — and more complete — understanding of yourself, and the world around you.
Questions for Reflection and Consideration
1. Recall a time in the past week that you made an assumption about a group of people based on a photo or headline. How does that assumption promote a more civil and democratic society?
2. What are your regular sources of media? Do you turn to social media or do you access regular media sources? Where do they fall in the media bias chart? Do their headlines and photos promote fear or hope? Othering or belonging?
3. For a fuller story on the incident involving Berlinda Nibo and Roy Ball, please read this article from the Los Angeles Times.
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