The recent press coverage of the death of Trayvon Martin has ripped the scab off an old wound that never seems to heal and reignited a long running debate about racial prejudices against young black men.
Whatever our intentions may be, many of us still experience an ingrained reaction to racial difference that can set off an emotional chain reaction that makes us react, rather than think.
I experienced this as a young child when a young black man drove up and parked by my house on afternoon. He was driving one of those large American automobiles they built back in the late 60’s and early 70’s– maybe a Chevy Impala or an old Cadillac. He stepped out of the car, dressed a bit like Richard Roundtree in the movie Shaft, and came over to ask me a question. I couldn’t understand his accent, and the one urgent thought that entered my head at the sight of a strange man, and a black man at that, was “Run!”
So I ran as fast as I could into the house, crying and calling for my mother. She came out, rather alarmed, only to suddenly shift into extreme embarrassment as she realized that the young man was only trying to figure out which was the house his mother worked in as a maid.
We all loved his mother, Rosa, who worked for our neighbors across the street but always had a kind word and a hug for all the kids in the neighborhood. So here was my mother, caught between the racial stereotypes she had passed on to me, and the “exception to the rule” category she placed people like Rosa into. “That’s Rosa’s son,” she told me, with no small hint of exasperation, as if that explained everything.
It didn’t explain anything to me. I stood there dumbfounded trying to figure out why I was suddenly in trouble for reacting the way my parents had taught me to act, if not explicitly, then through their own attitudes towards blacks. I felt embarrassed myself and stupid, as if I was suddenly playing a game whose rules I didn’t comprehend.
“But I couldn’t understand what he was saying,” I protested to my mother, as if that excused my total panic. “That’s because Rosa and her family are from the south,” my mother told.
When I think about the death of Trayvon Martin, I feel horror, sadness, and a little guilt that so many Americans still seem to be reacting to young black men based on the kind of stereotypes that I held, even as a small child.
It’s not hard to see where these come from. We see the images all the time, on TV news shows and Hollywood films, of young black men committing crimes and acts of violence. They show up in the grainy footage of convenience store cameras, hoodies pulled over their faces so you can scarcely see their skin. But the commentator always lets you know when the youth who was later apprehended was black or Latino.
We know from recent research into cognitive science that when we see something that frightens us, it is the most primitive part of the brain that reacts, what some refer to as the "amygdala hijack" that readies us for fight or flight, and literally shuts down (at least momentarily) the pre-fontal cortex that is the center of rational and reflective thinking.
So it’s not surprising, perhaps, that George Zimmerman never really saw Trayvon Martin as an individual but instead was totally focused on the stereotypical threat he felt from a young black man he assumed was up to no good. This is not to excuse Mr. Zimmerman’s actions in any way. He was told by the police not to follow Trayvon, and he was carrying a weapon, which made the situation all the more volatile. But when we act out of fear, we often stop thinking rationally, and that makes our actions doubly dangerous to ourselves and others.
I know what it’s like to be the mother of teen-aged boy and worry about him getting into a situation with the police or being with other teens in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was especially worried about my oldest son, who is gay, going to college in Texas; images of Matthew Shepard often haunted my thoughts from time to time during those years, even though I knew my fears weren't really warranted.
How much more difficult must it be then for the mothers of black sons who know that there is a very realistic chance that their fears might come true, whether their child is caught in the crossfire of gang violence, or shot by police, like the unarmed Oscar Grant, who was killed when a BART officer drew his gun instead of a Taser.
Whatever the facts of the Trayvon Martin case turn out to be, and they may well prove unknowable, since Trayvon can no longer give his version of events, a conversation about the subconscious triggers that racial stereotypes can set off is one that is long overdue.
For me, that confrontation with a young black man back on the streets of Detroit made me question the racial stereotypes my parents had passed on to me. I slowly moved from a state of bewilderment to skepticism to an outright rejection of the racism that was so prevalent in the white culture I grew up in.
But I know I cannot entirely escape the effects those stereotypes had on me. There are some situations – a neighborhood that doesn’t have a “safe” reputation, a parking lot late at night—where those anxious feelings are uppermost in my mind and the stereotypes remain just beneath the surface waiting to be triggered. At least, now as an adult, I can recognize and reject them. All we can hope for as a nation is that we continue to confront our deepest racial stereotypes and see them for what they are – the phantoms of our fears.
No comments:
Post a Comment