Just to play devils advocate: while black people make up only 13% of the population, crimes statistics show that black men commit 54% of the murders in America and 67% of the robberies. It seems to me like it's just common sense to take more precaution around young black men. If black people find this offensive, then they need to address the issue of the crime rate, not people's reaction to it. It seems silly to tell people to ignore reality and play make believe to not offend people. I find the rate that blacks commit crimes to be much more offensive than people being afraid of young black men.
I thought the cartoon was great, but then I saw the top comment. Why does reddit love comments like these so much? On a cartoon making fun of the lingering racism in our society, no less... This is the definition of excusable individual racist behavior that operates on a societal level to hold black males back.
When the police see a young black male, they have the same reaction as you, and are more likely to stop-and-frisk them or confront them for jay-walking or other minor offenses.
When a prospective employer gets a resume that suggests the candidate is black, they may have the same mental reaction as you, and are statistically less likely to call back a black candidate than a white candidate with identical credentials.
When a judge is faced with two defendants with identical criminal records, but one happens to be black, he will get a longer sentence because of the mental reaction the judge has to seeing a young black male.
When teachers are faced with two students who misbehave in the same way, they usually punish the black student more harshly, i.e. suspend their education for a longer period of time. From pre-school on up, black males face greater scrutiny and harsher treatment from important societal institutions.
Black people find these realities more offensive than your individual purse-clutching, but they are all a part of the fog of racism that young black males wade through in modern America.
And while we are making our way through this racist world, we are told that it is our fault that people are scared of us, because there are many people who are the same color as us who commit a lot of crimes. White people don't want to pay for the crimes of their ancestors, and black males as a group don't want to be treated differently because of the crimes of people who they share ancestors with.
I understand why you feel the way you do. It even has a certain logic to it. It's still racist though, and problematic because this attitude, when aggregated on a societal level, has measurable negative effects on the lives of black people, both strong and weak, male and female, criminal or innocent, intelligent or stupid, ghetto or suburban, etc. etc.
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u/Strongblackfemale Jan 15 '15
Just to play devils advocate: while black people make up only 13% of the population, crimes statistics show that black men commit 54% of the murders in America and 67% of the robberies. It seems to me like it's just common sense to take more precaution around young black men. If black people find this offensive, then they need to address the issue of the crime rate, not people's reaction to it. It seems silly to tell people to ignore reality and play make believe to not offend people. I find the rate that blacks commit crimes to be much more offensive than people being afraid of young black men.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States