Emmett Till

Make sure to read this recent article on Emmett Till. It is quite interesting and amazing also. The comments from some of the men interviewed are shocking to me. Well, in other ways not so shocking. I might expect it. I'm not sure I totally agree with the writer but it is interesting information to process.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory is all about changing one's thinking when you have conflicting thoughts & action. For example if you know smoking can harm you (thougth) but yet you smoke (action) you will change your thinking to fit the action by saying "smoking doesn't harm...I know someone 98 yrs old smoked their whole life...." Well, this certainly can be the case for these men on the jury. To have let someone go free that did murder Emmett is a great deal of guilt & the mind will want to reduce that guilt easily by simply convincing oneself that the person was not guilty or "they did the best they could with the information they received in court." Now I'm not saying that is not ever the case (the later) and that can be hard also, and being on a jury myself which was obvious to me what the judge favored & that the defense was not prepared I can unfortunately understand this but I can't say this was the situation in this case.

I'm not sure just because 1 person voted twice for guilty means there was no racism as the writer suggests. I also find it interesting on how the one jury member defines a person as "a good person". He stated if one does everything else (take care of family, job etc) right but murders they are still a good person? Do good people do bad behaviors? Yes. So then what is enough to say "they are a bad person?" or should we? Interesting! See why I'm in psychology! Ha!

After you read it, let me know what you think! It is 6 pages but extremely interesting & an important issue in society!