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Everybody on both sides has a narrative that they start with and MUST follow
- Most people decided on the correct narrative without having many facts. They put the story into their picture of the world so that it confirms their views. Their views on race, Florida's "stand your ground" gun laws, how cops behave, gated communities, how black teenagers behave, how juries work, etc. The story must fit into everyone's notions of these things. Even though it didn't happen in a gated community, "stand your ground" was not really relevant to the case, standard black teen behavior has nothing to do with anything at all here, etc.
- When the facts are not consistent with someone's narrative, those facts are ignored, or even changed. People actually rewrite the information so that it fits, and use colorful, emotional language that has nothing to do with the case.
- At some point, almost everyone's information about the case is basically wrong, because everyone they listen to has rewritten the facts to fit.
- For example, in the first 3 days following the event, we heard that "A black man was killed by a white man and the cops just let him go for no reason." This narrative was pushed early and often, and it should give people pause that this opening story was factually wrong and oversimplified. Already the facts are mangled in order to maximize outrage. Many people made up their mind at that point, and everything they've heard since then has been run through their narrative filtering, their opinion left unchanged.
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