The Problem with Reality

“F***ing bitch.”

That’s what ICE agent Jonathon Ross said on camera moments after fatally shooting Renée Nicole Good in her car in Minneapolis this week. We know this because it was captured in the released footage from Ross’s cellphone, showing how the events unfolded from his vantage point.

Per one narrative, that video, like the others taken from different perspectives that are widely circulating on social media, especially X, shows Good quickly turning to the right to drive away from the masked ICE agents demanding she get out of the car. She momentarily backs up to create space to turn and then quickly pulls her wheels to the right, away from the agents, in what looks like an attempt to get around them and leave.

Then, there’s another narrative. One that says Good drove her car at Ross, intending to run him over.

The video from Ross’s cellphone camera, in particular, is being shared as an example that supports this second narrative. That it shows Good driving the car at him and striking him.

I can see how it could be interpreted that way. The audio from Ross’s video as the car begins to move to the right could be interpreted as the sound of a car hitting a person. But if you listen to that exact moment in the rear-angle audio, it aligns with the first gunshot sound. Here are the two videos side by side, with the audio from Ross’s footage (A) in the first clip and the audio from the other video (B) in the second.

Same videos being watched. Wildly different conclusions being drawn. Both simultaneously backed up by opposing political narratives. Within hours, the same footage was being used to justify two incompatible stories. One official, one local.

“It was an act of domestic terrorism,” said US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, “An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him.” Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey was quick to counter this narrative: “They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video of myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit.” In his press statement, he said of ICE:

“We’ve dreaded this moment since the early stages of this ICE presence in Minneapolis. Not only is this a concern that we’ve had internally, we’ve been talking about it. They are not here to cause safety in this city. What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust. They’re ripping families apart. They’re sowing chaos on our streets and, in this case, quite literally killing people.”

And this is the problem with reality.

As Steven Fink writes in Crisis Communications: The Definitive Guide to Managing the Message, “when there is a difference between perception and reality, perception always wins”.

The different narratives in response to this video were established long before the tragic events occurred. The ideas of who is ‘bad’ and who is ‘good’ on both sides have developed gradually as the political divide in the US has widened over the past several years. Those narratives themselves feed into how different people can watch the same videos and perceive different versions of events. It’s not really seeing is believing… more what we believe is what we see.

It’s no coincidence that philosophy has never managed to come to a definitive agreement on what truth and knowledge actually are. Knowledge has been defined as a “justified true belief,” but beliefs can be justified and true without knowledge. Reliability conditions, causal connections to facts, and appeals to intellectual virtues have been explored as alternatives; there is no consensus. Same with truth. Is it agreement between a belief and objective reality? Coherence within a belief system? Is it whatever proves useful in practice? A linguistic shortcut? Is it inseparable from power and narrative control? Nobody knows. How can we, if we don’t know what knowing is… Enough of that. I’m not trying to get into overwrought philosophical commentary here. In practice, most of us live as if confidence equals knowledge and then interpret everything through it.

What I really want to highlight is that we often aren’t living in reality, but in perception.

Whether something is objectively true often matters less than what people believe to be true when they act. What matters a lot is that we are often living in situations where we think we know something and then use that information to filter reality through the perceptions of truth that that knowledge we (think we) have creates.

What matters most is what links all of these things together. Communication. Narratives. How information is shared.

Let’s say you trust me completely and I tell you, convincingly and with urgency, that something is dangerous. You believe me. You’re going to think it’s dangerous. You know it’s dangerous. So when you encounter that thing, you want to get away from it. Stop it. Warn other people about it. Make sure it can’t hurt you or others. And you see this as the right thing to do… because how could it be wrong to protect yourself and others against this dangerous thing?

But what if it isn’t dangerous. What if I have a reason to make you think it is because you acting on your fear, your survival instinct, your protective nature… serves me somehow. Gets me elected. Makes me money. Protects me. Elevates me above my competitors. Gives me credibility. Establishes a shared enemy that I need us to have to instigate a fight. Isolates you from other, more accurate perspectives to lend plausibility to mine.

I could go on. There’s a great number of reasons people will lie to you to make you think you know something is true… when what they’re actually getting you to do is believe their perceptions. (Note: They may do this entirely unintentionally.)

Communication in a crisis, as Steven Fink notes, goes a long way toward bringing perception in alignment with reality. That’s when it’s being used responsibly and as intended. But where there are proper ways to use a tool, there are always improper ways too. A hammer can knock a person out just as effectively as it can put a nail in a wall. Communication can align perception with whatever version of reality the communicator wants their audience to hold onto.

And this is what I’m thinking about when I watch the videos of the tragic shooting of Renée Nicole Good and the conflicting narratives surrounding it.

My perception is that the primary underlying issue is being lost in the back-and-forth over what Good was doing there and why, what she did or didn’t do with her car, what Ross should have done and why, who is at fault and why…

If you already believe cars are commonly used as weapons against officers, you’ll see a threat. If you already believe ICE escalates encounters, you’ll see an unnecessary killing.

I think it’s likely that the truth is a combination of both narratives. That Good didn’t try to run Ross over, but Ross thought she was going to. What I’d like to know is (a) why Ross perceived her as a threat and (b) why the response to that threat was to kill. Because I, perhaps naïvely, don’t believe that Ross is just inherently wired to kill a person in a car and call her a f***ing bitch as she dies. Perhaps this is because I don’t want to believe that people like that exist just out of nature. I don’t want to believe that there are people who are simply OK with hurting others and not giving a shit about it for no reason. But really, I think people who act this way are molded to do so. Conditioned by being told something is dangerous when it’s not.

What I want to know is what is going on in ICE training facilities that made Ross perceive that car as a lethal threat.

What are they being told?

That narrative that Noem came out with about people using cars as weapons and domestic terrorism… is that being taught to ICE agents?

Are they being told that protesters in cars are going to try to run them over? Are they being conditioned to believe that political opponents are not humans with differences of opinion but something along the lines of enemies in war? And are they being presented with this information within a perception that they are protecting their country by responding to manufactured threats with lethal force?

What are the narratives forming the perceptions they are bringing to their work?

Why are these narratives being used?

I find it hard to believe that shooting to kill is anyone’s natural response in a fast-moving situation where nothing is particularly clear. That it’s the natural response to a moving car versus getting out of the way. To me, it appears to be a fear response elicited by narratives that position political differences as threats to life, and if those narratives continue, more situations like this one will arise. Whether this comes from training, culture, policy, media ecosystems, or some mix of all four… I don’t know.

I don’t know what Ross was trained to do in this situation. I don’t know what guidance he received, what protocols apply, or what was emphasized in his preparation. It’s possible that this was a panicked, isolated failure rather than the product of systemic conditioning. I’m raising these questions not because I have answers, but because they feel like the only questions worth asking if we want fewer people to die.

I’m writing this because I want you to think about where your perceptions come from. Be more aware of where they come from.

If you’re seeing a video of an event and coming to conclusions about what it shows that differ from the conclusions another group is coming to, ask yourself what your perceptions are rooted in. Where your biases might be. What narratives have fed into these biases? How might you see the situation if you believed the other side’s narrative? Which of your beliefs, interpretations, and truths are yours… and which came from other people? What motivations might they have had to share those with you? If the things they said came from someone you don’t like or agree with, would they be as credible to you? If not, why are they when they come from someone you do like and agree with (on other issues)?

If you’re told a group of people is bad or dangerous, does the reasoning behind that stand up to scrutiny? Are the feelings you’re being told to have toward this group rational? Would you have them if you hadn’t been fed the narrative you’re using to justify your beliefs about them?

The problem with reality is that we often don’t even see it.

You have the power to choose the narratives that shape your perception of reality and, consequently, how you show up in the world.

Do yourself a favor and apply some discernment.