My brother has two daughters. One of them looks like me. Guess which one I have a special bond with? Oh, sure, other factors played a part as our relationship developed over the years, such as our mutual love of fashion and books, and her sister's bent toward sports. But even before my nieces were old enough to show such interests, there was already, although I tried not to let it show, a special pull toward that tow-headed little girl with thick glasses in whom I saw myself looking back at me.

This tug of the familiar goes beyond the familial, though. For example, I love dogs, all dogs. But if a Boxer crosses my path, I feel an instant bond. For the most cherished dog in all my life was a Boxer, and, having loved one Boxer mug, I favor them all based on appearance alone.

We humans are funny that way. We typically depend upon sight more than any other sense. We are visual beings, image-driven slaves to seeing. And we're hard-wired, it seems, to be drawn to the familiar.

This aspect of our humanity helps explain—not excuse—some of the phenomena surrounding the Trayvon Martin case. While exactly what happened is yet to be known, it's safe to say, I think, that much of what unfolded both before and after the fatal shooting is rooted in this sight-reliant aspect of human nature.

Consider some of the most potent images from the series of events:

  • a hooded African-American youth spotted late at night in a crime-plagued neighborhood
  • an outdated photo of the victim provided by family, taken years before when he was a much younger boy
  • a later photo of a thuggish-looking youth making obscene gestures circulating on the internet, erroneously identified as the victim
  • the President remarking that if had a son, he would "look like" the victim
  • Geraldo Rivera's declaration that the hoodie Martin was wearing "is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death" as the shooter is
  • a national movement of earnest faces draped by hoodies in a (sometimes awkward) show of solidarity for the victim

The power these images have had in fueling the story also helps explain—but does not excuse—some of our most pervasive human prejudices. While discrimination certainly manifests itself in myriad ways, as evidenced throughout all of history, forms of discrimination based on visual cues—skin color, ethnicity, and bodily disability, for example—might be the most visceral and difficult biases to exorcise. No wonder Lady Justice and ancient Greek prophets are depicted as blind.

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But recognizing our visual bias can, perhaps, help us to get beyond it.

For one thing, we can be intentional about making the unfamiliar familiar, about expanding the range of our experiences so as to enfold "the Other" within it.

Like the time a student came to me to request being signed into my freshman literature class, which was full. The student had prepared a long, persuasive speech in hopes of gaining my consent, and even though I knew I would sign him into the class, I let him deliver the speech. When he finished, I said, "That was lovely, and I'll sign you in. Not because of your speech, but because you remind me of my cousin Eddie." The student—with his espresso colored skin and black, curly hair—looked at me—with my pale skin and golden hair—in disbelief: who would have guessed that I have a cousin who looks just like him? Well, I do. He's adopted. And even though I generally sign students into my class if they need it, this student really did remind me of my beloved cousin. The student took my class, and we have a special relationship to this day. We call each other "Cuz."

While we can work to expand the horizon of the familiar, we have to realize too that we can't rid our lives of the unfamiliar altogether. Nor should we want to. Rather we should remember in our propensity to assign too much weight to image and too much significance to appearance that we now see as through a glass, darkly.

Consider the significance of the second commandment: "You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." In his landmark book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman ponders the implications of God limiting the means by which His people were to symbolize their experience. He conjectures that the commandment was given because

a people who are being asked to embrace an abstract, universal deity would be rendered unfit to do so by the habit of drawing pictures or making statues or depicting their ideas in any concrete, iconographic forms. The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking.

Much (not all) of Christian tradition has rejected a literal application of the prohibition against visual depictions. Yet, it is worth considering, along with the second commandment, all of the ways in which God has worked within His people to transform us into a people of the Word and the consequences of this transformation for an image-driven people.

The Image through which we should see all other images is the one we all bear. The first response to everyone we see, even through our amber lenses, should be, "You look familiar."

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