Ocular Metaphysics Case Study

When Michael Brown was shot August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis his aggressor, Officer Darren Wilson had applied what Cornell West has called an “ocular metaphysics” in this interpretation of what kind of person Michel Brown was, a criminal. In this case Daren Wilson saw that Michel was an African American, he processed a negative association that lead him to a misunderstanding, not only that, but his class authority gave him the right to shoot him and lastly his ego got over him and shot him multiple times. The color of your skin, potentially has negative or positive association, having darker skin put you in to a negative association. Michael Brown was killed over an assumption that an officer had made, by …show more content…
I also feel that another component is the title that you have in society. As I said before because Wilson was a police officer it raised his title in society and makes him superior then an eighteen old teenager that doesn't have a position, but in being classified as lower class and had not given the chance to hold any position in society. As West states "Traditional revisionist and vulgar Marxist types of history focus primarily on power within non discursive structure e.g. Power of kings, president, elites, or class and reduce the power within a discursive structure to mean achievement to view people..."(West), he explains how they create this idea of class to view people and the higher you are seems as more "achievable" in society. We are suppust to view the power of a police more valuable, but it's hard now because more and more we hear about the a white policeman killing an innocent African American. How are we supposed to respect them when a few police men like to view color people with an "ocular metaphysics". As we have experienced more police man are doing unmoral justice for African American. It started in early history and it has changed over a the years, but still some white people believe that Europeans are superior then any other …show more content…
Being an officer give an ego and special authority to society, in this case Officer Wilson took advantage of his authority and shot Micheal multiple times as this quote states “The shots fired outside of the vehicle hit Brown in the forehead, upper right arm and twice in the chest..” this shows how Wilson's ego got the best of him. Why would a police shoot a person more than three times?, this police man shot Michael a seveal times and didn’t realize that a shot in the head could mean death. He keeps going and his ego got in control over him and had the desire of shooting Micheal seveal times. As West talks about early history philosophy, the idiea of the ego, “Descartes, gave first place to concepts of the subject, the ego or the self and preeminence to the nation of representative knowledge” (West, 57), this shows how West talks about how Descartes says about having an ego, when you just start to think of yourself you don’t go off real evidence but just your thoughts. Those first thoughts are considered real knowledge at the momment as Descartes states. But as growing up we are taught to think about what we say and what we do before we actually talk or do. As a police officer you really need to analysis the situation everything you do, especially when you have a gun and other tools to protect yourself and don't let your ego contol you over what is morally right acording to the