Serious question. Did you remember who Philando Castile was when the verdict came out? Or have so many black men been killed by police that you honestly weren’t sure which one he was?
He’s the man who very politely informed the officer that he was carrying a gun (one he had a permit to carry). He did this, we can assume, to prevent the cop from panicking and shooting him if he saw the gun. But the officer shot him anyway. Fired 7 times into a car with not only Philando Castile in it, but also his girlfriend and her four-year-old daughter. Castile’s girlfriend livestreamed the aftermath. It was disturbing as hell to watch. The officer was still pointing his gun at them. Still more concerned about the girlfriend keeping her hands where he can see them than the man dying in front of him. And the girlfriend? Calm. Because you have to be calm when someone is pointing a gun at you and just shot your boyfriend for no reason. You have to reassure him – the man who just killed your boyfriend in front of your daughter – that you’re no threat.
The cop was found not guilty of all charges. According to our justice system, he did nothing wrong. He was fearing for his life.
Have you spotted the flaw in the system yet?
If all you have to do to be able to shoot whoever you like is be afraid of them, then racism literally is your defense. If you – consciously or subconsciously – believe that black people are inherently dangerous, then any encounter with them could lead you to fear for your life. They reach for their wallet? You were afraid for your life. They have skittles in their pocket? You were afraid for your life. He was running away and you shot him in the back? You were afraid for your life.
And as long as some of the people on the jury share your prejudices, you’ll be able to convince them it was totally reasonable to be afraid in that moment. How would they have felt, in your shoes? In this country, probably just as irrationally afraid of someone reaching for their wallet as you were. And there you have it. Racism was the cause. Racism was the defense. Racism was how the jury reached their conclusion.
This is important because this is not the kind of racism that leads people to put on white sheets and light crosses on fire.
A recent study showed photographs of men to volunteers, and found that black men were perceived as being larger, stronger, and more muscular than their white counterparts.
An APA study on specifically police officers found a tendency to dehumanize black people. Black children as young as ten years old were perceived as being older and less innocent than white children.
This is not a coincidence. Jim Crow era whites had a vested interest in keeping the public wary and distrustful of black people, and since they controlled the media, they were able to spread caricatures that persist to this day.
This is why we need black representation. There is a severe dearth of positive black perception and it is causing subconscious racism that is literally getting people killed.
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