Picking Cotton – Eye Witness Memory

Posted on March 11, 2009 by moonbridgebooks

I listened to a remarkable Diane Rehm Show the other day about a case of mistaken identity that landed an innocent man in prison. While we sometimes hear of this, what makes this case memorable is how the crime victim, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, was absolutely dead sure she had picked the right man who raped her. Through her ordeal, she focused on survival and burning her assailant’s image into her brain so that he could be caught and put away. Based on her witness, Ronald Cotton was sent to jail in 1984 with a life term plus 50 years. Jennifer felt she had saved the women of America from this man. Unfortunately, she was wrong.

Eleven years later, through a new technology called DNA testing, Ronald Cotton was found innocent, and another man – who looked very similar to him – was found guilty and confessed. Jennifer was devastated by what she had done. Her memory had deceived her. Plagued by nightmares and fear of retribution, she finally asked to meet. Ronald, with gracious mercy, forgave her and set them both on a path of healing and activism. Ronald and Jennifer have written a book together, Picking Cotton, to detail their story. It is a frightening learning experience about the fallibility of memory. Jennifer had made an honest mistake that could have destroyed a man’s life, and what about other crime cases where strangers are identified based on eye witness and then convicted with no DNA evidence?

What is it with memory? Jennifer KNEW this was the man, beyond doubt, and the jury believed her. Is our lesson to always doubt what we see? Can we trust our memories, will our memoirs ever be the truth? For most of us this is not a life-altering question, we are not faced with being asked probing questions that may confuse or lead us to make mistakes. For those of us who aren’t crime witnesses, it does indicate that we might want to discuss some of our memories of events with others who were also there at the time. Is our perception greatly different from that of the others? Feelings, emotions, stress – which should not be negated in a memoir – can cloud what really happened. Augustin Burroughs would have been smart to ask his own family to verify his version of events before publishing Running With Scissors! When we collaborate with others we might find more of the truth, and we might even find ourselves recalling even more detail to add to our stories. On the other hand, beware of one person leading us to memories that never were. Collaborate, sift, think, then write your truth.

“If you accept that the way we think, perceive, reason, and judge is not always perfect, then it’s easy to understand why cognitive processes and the factors influencing these processes are studied by psychologists in matters of law; not least because of the grave implications that this imperfection can have within the criminal justice system.” –from All About Forensic Psychology

Linda Austin
“Cherry Blossoms in Twilight”
http://www.moonbridgebooks.com
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Got Culture – Or Just an Average White Guy?

Posted on March 6, 2009 by moonbridgebooks

I loved this article by John Keilman of the Chicago Tribune: Feel You Have No Real Culture? Join the Club. Of course, I’ve got culture. Even my husband from the hills of Tennessee has culture. But poor John is a really average white guy. What to do when your kid comes home needing to bring food from his heritage for an international classroom dinner? After writing about how you can’t judge a country or a people by a book, I like Keilman’s view of our extreme melting pot of culture in the U.S. resulting in a savory stew of cultures that we’re all eagerly devouring. Really, it’s becoming a global thing what with technology, the spread of information, and easy world travel. Just regarding my own culture, you don’t have to be Japanese to dress anime or eat sushi, and you don’t have to be American to sing country karaoke in English in a Ginza bar (as my husband found out on a business trip). Keilman says, “Culture constricts as much as it defines, and if we can blunt a few blood feuds with skinny jeans, then may Hot Topic spread to all the nations of the earth.” It’s nice to have “your” culture, but it’s also nice to share.

Linda Austin
“Cherry Blossoms in Twilight”
http://www.moonbridgebooks.com
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Perspectives – Are You Blind?

Posted on February 27, 2009 by moonbridgebooks
Last week I wrote about The Black Girl Next Door, a memoir of an upper middle class black family growing up in a rich, white area of Los Angeles. Very interesting, but in no way representative of black America, nor undoubtedly of upper middle class black America. Xujun Eberlein, who wrote the wonderful book of short stories Apologies Forthcoming set around the Chinese Cultural Revolution, has posted in her Inside Out China blog Four Sides to Every Coin about the many sides of China and how one or two books about Chinese life and culture in no way can represent all of China. She used the example of a classroom studying Pearl Buck’s novel The Good Earth and her own child coming home thus claiming China is where people eat babies! Very funny, but not. That reminds me of when we lived in England for a year and learned the neighbor children thought all Americans were rich and had guns. Hope we managed to enlighten them about that.

As an avid reader of memoirs, especially those of different cultures, I can certainly attest to how each one represents a different facet of life experiences even when the stories are from the same country, the same culture, the same generation and, probably, even from the same family. I wanted to learn about real life in India, but Climbing the Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey is only one view from the wealthy. I wanted to learn about the Palestinian experience, but Tasting the Sky by Ibtisam Barakat left more questions than answers. Even nonfiction studies or textbooks don’t tell the whole story, even (and especially) the media won’t tell it. The best we can do is to read and read some more, talk to real people, and keep our minds open because no country, no area, no one or several people can come close to being representative of the whole. Xujun notes that “taking a particular part of a thing and believing it as the whole is common in human behavior.” I guess we have a need to pigeonhole things in order to make life less complicated. So easy to live with blinders on.

Linda Austin
“Cherry Blossoms in Twilight”
http://www.moonbridgebooks.com
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