Disturbingly, Americans are being told different stories about what’s happening in Minneapolis.
That became clear when White House officials admitted they had doctored a photo of Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney, as she was escorted from a St. Paul, Minn., church where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer, David Easterwood, reportedly serves as a pastor.
Levy Armstrong and two others were arrested for disrupting the church service by chanting “ICE out” and demanding justice for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier this month. To date, federal officials have said they will not investigate the shooting, declaring it an act of self-defense.
Levy Armstrong did not protest her arrest, as attested by a photo posted on social media by Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Defense, where Levy Armstrong displays a calm demeanor.
But that’s not the image the White House wants us to see.
Instead, we’re to believe that Levy Armstrong is emotionally frail. Unhinged.
So to suit that message, White House staff digitally altered the photo to depict Levy Armstrong overwhelmingly distraught with tears streaming down her face.
When questioned by CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, not only did Kaelan Dorr, White House deputy communications director, admit they had doctored the photo, but that “The memes will continue.”
To what purpose?
To further divide us.
To take us to a point where it’s not “seeing is believing.” If you believe us, you’ll see what we tell you to see, the White House seems to say.
In an instructive piece of journalism, Substack columnist and CNN host Van Jones says the problem isn’t that Americans aren’t disagreeing over what we see — it’s that we’re seeing entirely different realities. Different clips, different videos, different photos.
“And that’s not an accident,” Jones writes. “That’s the business model of social media. Outrage pays. Fear spreads. Certainty goes viral. Nuance and balance die in the algorithm.”
Any wonder our country feels like it’s at a breaking point?
The more we follow the downward spiral of social media threads, the more isolated our thought process becomes, taking us further from the truth.
During these volatile times we deserve the truth from our leaders.
