White fear functions as a constant, gravity-like force in American life.

Evidence

This fear is general rather than individual, and its object is any possible other person, not one specific man facing me on the street at night. It is also any possible time, not a specific moment, which after all is an exceptional moment, one that will come to an end. This fear never ends, never starts, is always present like gravity. … Here Fisher describes fear generally. But in the United States white fear never ends either. It is always present, ready to be activated by the slightest encounter or gesture and ready to be used to short-circuit any serious attempt to end racial inequality. And its gravitational force (the media) pulls all Americans, no matter their color, into its orbit. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 217

Categorization

• DEFINE: Glaude distinguishes the generalized, perpetual white fear from ordinary situational fear, giving racial fear a distinctive structure.
• DEEPTHINKING: The gravity metaphor persists across the chapter as a lens for how fear operates as ambient background rather than discrete events.