Jamelle Bouie: Intercultural Conflict Analysis

When evaluating intercultural conflict it is important to recognize and get an understanding of the context in which that issue is rooted. In conflict, there is typically a larger historical, social, economic, and political context that is deeply rooted within that conflict (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). When we look at the contexts of what is going on in not only Ferguson, Missouri but around the country, we see that they are deeply engrained in the history of the African American culture and systematically engrained in an economic, political, and social way as well.
In Why the Fires in Ferguson Won’t End Soon, Jamelle Bouie (2014) discusses some of the historical context from which we can grasp a deeper understanding of why this issue is being …show more content…
These differing views may very well stem from a differences among the cultures tuning into this conflict. One difference of views pertains to the report of the incident itself. The police involved report one thing, witnesses report another. Although some may view the differences among these reports as simple oppositional “he said, she said,” others can see this in the context of racial, social, and culture differences between blacks and whites, police officers and pedestrians, or even a variance among classes. In the report of Darren Wilson, the officer that delivered the fatal gun shots to Michael Brown, he stated that he felt endangered and threatened by Browns stance, by his size, even by the way he was looking at him (Cave, 2014). But eyewitness and friend to Michael Brown, Dorian Johnson, reported that his apprehension about the officer as they flagged down in the middle of the street by him (Bouie, 2014). Darren Wilson’s perception of the incident could very well have been the result of the conditioned perception of criminality of the black man as I mentioned earlier. Johnson’s perception could have been the reversed result of that engrained perception which now breads animosity, fear, and apprehension towards whites in civic power. So it could be a cultural issue. There is also the view that this is not a “white vs. black” issue as much as it is a “police vs. civilians and the system that continues to allow them to get away with crimes that the rest of Americans can’t.” I see this as a cultural difference as well. Although the view of this being more of a “white vs. black issue” stems more so towards the historical context of blacks in society going from slavery, to segregation and Jim crow laws, and etc. I see the other stand point as well, as we