When the story is the strategy: Memphis, misdirection, and the politics of perception

Memphis is being asked to believe a set of stories that feel familiar, sound convincing and collapse under even modest scrutiny.

We are told that the Memphis (Un)Safe Task Force is the primary driver of declining crime. We are told that a forensic audit of Memphis-Shelby County Schools confirms widespread waste, fraud and abuse. We are shown images of police aggression at a protest and told it is necessary to maintain order. Each of these narratives is being circulated with confidence. 

None of them, as currently presented, are grounded in the full truth.

Taken together, they reveal something far more dangerous than simple disagreement. They expose a coordinated pattern of narrative construction shaped by confirmation bias, political expediency and a media environment too willing to repeat claims before interrogating them.

Start with the audit.

The Tennessee Comptroller released an interim forensic audit of Memphis-Shelby County Schools on Wednesday. Interim. Partial. Ongoing. The $7 financial review at the heart of the audit is only about 25%complete. Yet before most people could read the document, the public was already being told what it meant.

What the audit actually says is far more measured than what has been reported. It identifies approximately $1.1 million in contracts categorized as waste or abuse and about $1.7 million in transactions reflecting policy noncompliance within a system that operates on a roughly $1.8 billion annual budget.  

That is not insignificant. It warrants accountability, reform, and better oversight.

Early Memphis schools audit findings ‘consistent with waste or abuse’

But it is not evidence of systemic collapse. It is not proof of criminal enterprise. In fact, the audit explicitly states that it does not determine guilt or innocence and cannot guarantee that all irregularities have been detected.  

In other words, the document is a tool for understanding. It has been treated as a verdict.

The same distortion is at work in the conversation around crime.

When President Donald Trump came to Memphis on March 23, he praised the Memphis (Un)Safe Task Force as the central reason crime has declined. That claim is politically useful because it is simple. It suggests that a complex social reality can be reduced to a single intervention backed by force. It tells a story people already want to believe.

But it is also incomplete and misleading. Multiple reports indicated that crime in Memphis was already declining at a notable rate before the task force was ever deployed. That context matters. Because if the trend predates the intervention, then the intervention cannot be honestly credited as the primary cause.

Even more troubling is what has been ignored. While the task force remains in place, there have been indications of recent upticks in certain categories of crime. Yet those developments have not been incorporated into the narrative. They are inconvenient, so they are omitted.

That is not analysis. That is curation. And narrative, when untethered from evidence, becomes propaganda. 

That same logic carries over into how we interpret what happened at Saturday’s No Kings protest.

State Rep. Pearson calls Memphis Police actions at No Kings march unnecessary 

We saw aggressive policing. We saw escalation in moments that required de-escalation. We saw force deployed against people exercising their constitutional rights. Yet almost immediately, the dominant framing centered on whether the protest was “permitted” rather than whether the policing was lawful.

That inversion is not accidental. It is the product of proximity to power.

When people identify with those in authority, they tend to defend the system. When they identify with those subjected to that authority, they tend to question it. That is not new. What is troubling is how consistently that dynamic is being exploited.

The conditions that make this possible have been cultivated.

In 2024, the U.S.  Department of Justice issued a pattern and practice investigation into the Memphis Police Department that raised serious concerns about unconstitutional policing. Instead of embracing that report as a roadmap for reform, local leadership, including Mayor Young and his administration, has downplayed its significance and resisted the kind of robust oversight that would make accountability real rather than rhetorical.

When oversight is treated as optional, accountability becomes conditional. When accountability is conditional, misconduct becomes predictable. Officers do not operate in a vacuum. They operate within cultures shaped by leadership signals, policy frameworks, and the perceived likelihood of consequence.

Department of Justice opens civil rights probe of Memphis after Tyre Nichols death case

If the message from leadership is that federal scrutiny is excessive, that reform is overstated, or that criticism is politically motivated, then it should not surprise us when officers act with a sense of insulation rather than accountability.

What ties all of these moments together is confirmation bias. Claims are elevated not because they are fully supported by evidence, but because they affirm what certain audiences are already inclined to believe. Media outlets repeat those claims, sometimes without sufficient context, and repetition begins to substitute for verification.

Talking points become headlines. Headlines become assumptions. Assumptions become public memory.

But memory built on distortion is not harmless. It shapes policy. It shapes perception. It shapes whose pain is taken seriously and whose is dismissed.

Memphis deserves better than narratives that move faster than the truth.

We can acknowledge that crime may be trending downward without surrendering to the myth that one task force is solely responsible. We can demand accountability in our school system without exaggerating the findings of an incomplete audit. We can insist on public safety without excusing unconstitutional policing.

These are not competing commitments. They are the minimum requirements of an honest public discourse.

The question is not whether stories will be told. They always are. The question is whether we will have the discipline to distinguish between stories that clarify reality and stories that manipulate it.

Because when the story becomes the strategy, the truth becomes collateral. And in a city like Memphis, we cannot afford to build policy, perception, or public trust on anything less than the truth.