Last Sunday, Denise Oliver Velez wrote about the fear of young Black men
This got me thinking (Denise's posts always get me thinking....)
Why do we fear young Black men?
or, to be blunt, why do I fear young Black men?
Why might you?
more below the Kos Croissant
First, let me say I am leery of categories of people "young", "Black", "men". In reality, all three vary. People can be any age, race is a social construct that plays out in all sorts of ways, and "men" not only plays with age (when does a boy become a man?) but presupposes a category of "male". Nevertheless, these categories are useful here.
Next, let me exclude from the "fearers" the obvious and blatant racists. Let me leave out Jim Eastland and Bull Connor and their ideological descendants. They are a dwindling minority and they are not here.
Then, let me engage in a little thought experiment.
You (or I) are walking down the street one night.
Scene I: You see a group of young Black men
Scene II: You see a group of young White men
Scene III: You see a group of old Black men
Scene IV: You see a group of old White men
Scene V: You see a group of young Black women
Scene VI: You see a group of young White women
Scene VII: You see a group of old Black women
Scene VIII You see a group of old White women
Would you react the same way in all 8 cases? I don't know about you. If you really would react the same way in all 8, then.... well, congratulations.
I would not.
That first group arouses more fear.
Why might this be so? How might we change it?
It cannot solely be a matter of "different". I am a man, but I would fear men (any of those first four groups) more than women (their counterparts in the latter four). While I am no longer young, my fear of the young groups was always greater than my fear of the old. On Black vs. White, yes, there is that element. But if I had to rank those 8 in terms of fearsomeness, the young White men would come second.
Yet, the vast majority of any of those groups mean me no harm. I know this. And yet.....
Part of this is rational: Young men (of any race) are far more likely to be aggressive and violent than older men or women of any age. But even though they are far more likely, they are not very likely. This is an error in human thought that plays out in all sorts of ways, not just in ways related to race, age and fear. Let us take the extreme case of murder. Last year, in New York City (where I live) there was about 1 murder a day in a city of 8 million people. The chances that I (or anyone) would be murdered are very very small. In addition, a fair portion of those murders are by family members. The odds of being murdered in a street confrontation are even smaller. Perhaps 1 in 20 million in a year.
Yet we humans do something strange (and we do this, as I said, in all sorts of situations). Let us suppose that the likelihood of being attacked by a young Black man are higher than that of being attacked by other groups. Let us suppose, to use a round number, that they are 10 times higher (that is, almost certainly, a wild overestimate). That would mean my chance of dying in such a situation is 1 in 2 million per year. Vanishingly small. But our minds play tricks on us, and concentrate on the "more likely" and not on the "still very unlikely indeed".
More is going on though.
There is what is called the heuristic of availability.
If you ask Americans whether there are more librarians or farmers in the United States, most people will say there are more librarians. This is more pronounced in urban and suburban areas. (People have actually done this). Actually, there are 10 times as many farmers. But more of us know a librarian than a farmer.
In our example, we see (on TV, in the newspaper) examples of violent people. And, all too often, we see a young Black man being the violent one. Much of this is due to media bias.
Yet there is even more going on.
"Blackness" is noticeable, if only because Blacks are a minority. The default supposition is that a person is White. So, "Black" becomes a descriptor in ways that "White" does not. For example, if you had to describe Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia to someone who knew nothing of either one, you would (I daresay) be far more likely use "Black" in your description of Thomas than "White" in your description of Scalia (I picked two odious justices on purpose).
Because "Black" is a descriptor, it is called to memory more quickly.
What about "man" and "woman"? Both of these are very commonly used as descriptors, from infancy onwards. "It's a boy!" "What a good girl!" "He's a great man" etc. What happened to person? I dunno. But googling "good man" gets 21 million results; "good woman" gets almost 1 billion results; "good person" gets a little over 1 million.
So, if we describe a chromosonally bifurcated human with lots of melanin, we say "Black man". And age is a natural descriptor. So.... "Last night, a young Black man killed ...." and there it is in our memory, ready to be called up when we look for an image of "violence".
What can we do about this? How can we be better?
Because this won't do.
We could publicize other acts by young Black men (all those millions and millions of YBM who have never been violent).
We could try to stop the "perpetrator parade" on TV and newspapers (especially tabloids). Aren't there more important things to worry about than who killed whom?
We could challenge ourselves, each time we find ourselves thinking this way, to stop and think a little more.
And perhaps you have other ideas?