Racialized images of criminality reconstitute and escalate through moral panics
Evidence
Americans experienced several racial moral panics in the latter half of the twentieth century—all related to the fear of black criminality. As the nation confronted the grassroots social movements for black freedom, many Southern segregationists called for law and order in the face of the threat of the black criminal. Senator Strom Thurmond suggested that calls for integration would result in “a wave of terror, crime, and juvenile delinquency.” — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 208 (
#exemplifies, via linked claim)
These more ‘spectacular’ moments need, however, to be placed against a longer and broader backdrop of Muslim demonization in Britain and, I would argue, cannot be understood without this historical and discursive racist hinterland. … It is worth noting, for example, that explanations for the ‘Asian gang’ folk devil of the 1990s (Alexander 2000) drew on the same images of cultural dysfunction and identity crisis that demonized black youth in the 1980s (Alexander 1996), urban ‘gangs’ in the 2000s (Alexander 2008), and Muslim ‘grooming gangs’ and ‘fundamentalism’ in the 2010s. — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 162 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Racial moral panics resulted in exaggerated outrage that increased policing of certain black communities, dulled even further capacities for empathy and compassion, and confirmed and deepened white fears. And we now have nearly one million African Americans incarcerated, which for many people, consciously or not, affirms the perceptions that started the cycle in the first place. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 215 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Racial humiliation is recast as fiscal and security threat language. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1758; Moral panics about women online repeat Victorian fears of women in stores — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love:…, 53; White criminals are mythologised as rogues where Black suspects are demonised as gangsters — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1751 (+12 more)
Broader Connections
- Postwar racial moral panics centered on the fear of black criminality
#exemplifies(0.95) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 208 - Successive moral panics recycled the same demonizing stereotypes across groups
#corroborates(0.95) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 162 - Racial moral panics produce self-confirming cycles of incarceration and white fear.
#expands(0.92) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 215