Thats great but pointless. I never called you a bigot so I dont really care about your earlier posts.
I've seen alot of people I worked with do the same thing. They take snippets of experiences and piece them together together to form a history. Thats why lies are so common in our society. People tell them all the time. Fisherman lie about the size of the their catch for one example. The term "mentally stable" relies upon an agreed upon norm. I have found that people who think they are the norm are usually sheep and lack the ability to think for themselves. You seem to fall in that category when you stand behind the term mentally stable. You dont even know what that means.
Fascinating. I have to admit, I had never heard of anyone doing as you say here until this story came out. In my mind it indicates a form of denying reality, though I suppose I could indeed write it up as a "fish tale" with a minor expansion of the concept of why people typically tell "fish tales," as you have pointed out...
Under a "fish tale" theory as you present, and in my analysis of such, I am left with a less "pleasing" opinion of this woman's intentions however, and I much prefer to see the good in peoples actions than the bad; perhaps I too deny reality at times...
In any event, in my mind, it would boil down to her a) desiring to fit in, b) craving attention or pity, or c) merely "writing" a story to intrigue her audience. As a writer I can understand C well enough, and in the spirit of "taking others experiences as my own," an expanded form of empathy if you will, I can find understanding for A. B however troubles me to grasp, it is difficult for me to combine the dueling concepts of "not being a sheep who thinks for themselves" while simultaneously "accepting the experiences of others as my own history." Despite B, under the "fish tale" theory you present, then yes, I could accept that as a form of "normal."
Unfortunately this "fish tale" theory brings with it concern as well. Now, in any other position, this "fish tale" theory likely wouldn't be a problem, but when you have someone who is an NAACP leader who is supposed to be representing the very /real/ plights of modern blacks, making up "fish tales," there becomes a question of integrity in the position, don’t you agree?
For example, suppose I tell a "fish tale" about a guy hitting me. If I merely tell my friends, then likely no harm done I can agree. However, if I were to start telling that "fish tale" in public, to the media, or the police, are we then not in a whole other world of possible "harm done"? Is it still "acceptable" to continue to portray that "fish tale" as the truth, when that guy may face reputational or legal ramifications from that lie?
In the real story of the OP, she has claimed that her “father,” who is actually her ex-husband as I understand it, beat her with a baboon whip. I suppose given that she had claimed he was abusive to her during their marriage, perhaps her internal justification regarding “lying” about it, is in some ways lessened, beat with hands vs beat with a baboon whip is perhaps a minor embellishment. What if he didn’t actually abuse her at all, what if it was actually one of her friend’s experiences that she “borrowed” and pinned on him to make it more believable? Especially given that she is in a position that is supposed to be the voice for the wrongness of exactly the kind of shit she is doing?
And honestly, either way you look at this situation, you literally have a case of a white chick making up a “fish tale” about a black man abusing her. Yet you are defending her and her telling of that lie. I find this a bit baffling…
If we accept your “fish tale” theory as real and normal within the black community then it only highlights the need for absolute integrity among your community leaders /if/ the ultimate goal is to end racism.
The theory actually does help me comprehend a number of aspects of modern racism and helps explains many of the situations I personally found impossible to understand in recent events. Think about it, if we accept that the community takes a tale told to them, and incorporates such as their own living memory, then we /can/ actually find “reason” behind many of the seemingly bizarre actions and reactions. It is little wonder that they cannot “get over” slavery, not when they are in a sense actually “re-living” slave stories as their own personal experiences every time the word is mentioned. Racism cannot really end under this theory, because any tale or being mistreated told, real or fake, becomes a “shared memory” if you will within the community, with minor embellishments added to make it “personal” perhaps. Deeper consideration theorizes that unable to incorporate any “new” facts that may come out in a case into the self-imprinted memory of the “initial telling of the tale,” and harboring decades worth of stories of slavery as their own memories as well, they violently explode when officers go free for the injustice that exists in the “memory” they have imprinted from that initial tale – to example, the Brown had his hands up in surrender and got shot in the back “fish tale” completely ignoring the evidence that he was attacking officer Wilson. Applying the theoretical precursor of self-imprinted memory, the “bizarre” actually begins to make sense. Even discounting that they recognize they are not actually Mike Brown, with the incorporated living memories of decades old police racism and brutality in a sense “fresh” in their minds, then it becomes almost logical to for them to assume that the police are lying about the evidence that Brown attacked the officer. Perhaps through study of this extreme emotional contagion phenomena we could make lasting progress in "recovering" from slavery...
