Reality and perception often deviate and, in some cases, contrast. We train our minds to distinguish and investigate as we grow intelligent and aware. However, perception can be overwhelming that our minds reject facts and reality to preserve its convenience. We know this by our ongoing struggle to change public opinion of the Palestinian cause. We push facts and emotional content in the hope that the silent majority would reflect on their perceptions and adjust them to conform to the fact that the Palestinian people are under ongoing aggression and the Palestinian cause is a just cause to support.
Browsing Instagram stories, I watched one video that led me to one of my own perspective biases. A professional-looking black man of a MalcomX vibe with glasses calmly addressed a TV host: " If a Muslim family moves into your neighborhood, you should be lucky. The neighborhood has just become safer." I don't usually think much of self braising claims. I also do not appreciate a default defensive position forced upon us by a negative stereotype. Furthermore, I tend to believe that crime ratios are not relevant to a religion but rather many other factors. Therefore, As much as I disagree to people accusing Muslims of being more violent than average, I disagree that Muslims are less violent too. My bias is a confirmation bias of believing that all humans are product of their socioeconomic environments. I dug deeper. I was wrong. I decided its worth a read:
"Statistical academic studies have found that violent crime is less common among Muslim populations than it is among non-Muslim populations.[328][329][330][331] The average homicide rate in the Muslim world was 2.4 per 100,000, less than a third of non-Muslim countries which had an average homicide rate of 7.5 per 100,000.[332] The average homicide rate among the 19 most populous Muslim countries was 2.1 per 100,000, less than a fifth of the average homicide rate among the 19 most populous Christian countries which was 11.0 per 100,000, including 5.6 per 100,000 in the United States.[333] A negative correlation was found between a country's homicide rate and its percentage of Muslims, in contrast to a positive correlation found between a country's homicide rate and its percentage of Christians.[331] According to Professor Steven Fish: "The percentage of the society that is made up of Muslims is an extraordinarily good predictor of a country’s murder rate. More authoritarianism in Muslim countries does not account for the difference. I have found that controlling for political regime in statistical analysis does not change the findings. More Muslims, less homicide."
"A statistical textual analysis of the Qur'an and Bible conducted by software engineer Tom Anderson in 2016, using the Odin Text analytics software, found that violence is less frequent in the Qur'an than in the Bible. According to Anderson: "Killing and destruction are referenced slightly more often in the New Testament (2.8%) than in the Quran (2.1%), but the Old Testament clearly leads—more than twice that of the Quran—in mentions of destruction and killing (5.3%). At the same time, Anderson states that: "I must also reemphasize that this analysis is superficial and the findings are by no means intended to be conclusive."[335]
Detecting our own biases when receiving information is the challenge of the overwhelming stream of information in our 21st century. It is worth the time to equip our brains to detect them in real-time once our brain trigger any of them.
- Child of Handala