Perception of Black youth as criminals precedes and justifies their deaths

Evidence

If we stopped seeing young black people first as criminals, we might break loose from the racial stranglehold on our national imagination. Think about the different outcomes if police changed their perception of young black people. In Philadelphia, when a group of black boys—basketball players who don’t have a gym in their charter school—gets off the subway in brutally cold weather wearing hats, gloves, and scarves given to them by their teacher, the police would not see a potential crime. They would see children they should protect. We wouldn’t end up with a sixteen-year-old with a ruptured testicle at the hands of a police officer. Or, beyond the police, think about a mother who might still have her daughter if Theodore Wafer had not thought Renisha McBride was trying to break into his home and shot her in the face, but instead saw someone in need of help. Sandra Bland, Eleanor Bumpers, Tanisha Anderson, and Duanna Johnson (and, tragically, so many more) might still be alive today as well. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 550

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The counterfactual ‘seeing children rather than criminals’ approach echoes the perception-shift framing that underlies the ‘racial habits’ analysis; connects to how perception drives outcomes rather than individual bad actors.