White fear shapes even black people’s own perceptions of danger.

Evidence

Here is the wildest and most devastating part. White fear isn’t just limited to white people. As a political emotion, white fear is expressed across and within different groups—even among black people themselves. When I drive down Stuyvesant Avenue in Trenton, New Jersey, at night, I feel a deep concern about my own safety. Stuyvesant is not safe. In some quarters, it is known as “Little Iraq.” Shootings, drug deals, and other illicit behavior happen on this street. But that “reasonable” concern is bound up with other assumptions about this particular street, and about the people who live there. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 200

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s value-gap reading project — white fear internalized by black people shows how the value gap operates as a shared national premise, not just a white attitude.
• SHARE: A striking candor from a black Princeton professor about his own fear in Trenton — worth sending to a friend who writes about race and internalization.