Hold on to your hat, but recent studies have determined that if you view Black people to be inherently more dangerous, you’ll find it much easier if, say, you’re a cop, to act as though they actually ARE.
This would seem apparent. I mean, if you find Black people to be ontologically different — different at their core, different in every aspect –then that “difference” will be, to the one who feels it, always negative.
Therefore, any Black person you see will be “not like you,” the Other, and can’t possibly become “like you” (thankfully). So, with this picture in mind, fed by a constant torrent of racist imagery:
When a Black man wears baggy jeans, he’s in a gang. Dangerous.
When a Black man puts his hand in his pocket, he has a gun. Dangerous.
When a Black man hitches up his pants in the front, he wants to rape your daughter. Dangerous.
When a Black man waves to a friend or poses in a picture, he’s flashing gang signs. Dangerous.
When a Black woman has children, we presume she can’t support them on her own. Irresponsible.
When a Black woman doesn’t have children, we presume she’s too “aggressive” to join the Mommy track. Angry.
When a Black woman speaks, her words come from a reservoir of white hatred. Angry.
When a Black child __________________________, the rotten white supremacist mind sees all of the above in juvenile form, and acts accordingly.
Dangerous, Irresponsible, Angry — and, to the racist, not only justifiably the Other, but justifiably, for the “good citizens” of the area, targeted for violence, if not extermination. I think we can safely infer that there are too damned many cops who fit a profile they’ll never have to answer to in the same way, to the same degree, as the African-American people they’re shooting.
Where’s the Church?
(crickets …)