What do YOU see?

What do you see in this image?
A man beating or threatening another man?

One could imagine the headline for such a picture to be “Police Brutality!”

But what if the picture instead bore the caption “Brave off-duty policeman snatches club from dangerous thug.”

This video posted by a friend of mine on Facebook recently interests me because it plays on all our inherent prejudices and preconceptions.

What do you see?
An heroic white, old man standing up to the young dark skinned bully?

In this longer version of the video, we see the beginning of the exchange. The older man asking the younger man how much it would cost to spitshine his shoes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR8oHo6nQE0

Watch again and notice the “young” guy tells us his age. He’s 50.

I’m not saying either man is justified in his actions, I just wonder if reactions would be different were the title of the video different.
How about “Innocent man on bus stands up to racist and gets viciously beaten for it.”