Racist Logic Vs Reality– Holding a Mirror Up to the Numbers

Lately I've had to take a cold hard look at whatever racist belief systems I might have running in the background of my psychology. It's not fun, and it's not comfortable, but it's also not helping anyone if I don't, as a white person, identify and root out whatever programming I have that helps to perpetuate the ongoing pain of an entire faction of the citizens of my own country.

I would urge you to examine your own inner racism. Think about your reactions as a white person.  How many times have you been afraid and locked your door when you saw a young man of color nearing your car? Got nervous on public transportation when a black kid who was dressed a certain way sat close to you? When did you feel subconsciously threatened because of skin color? Police are not the only ones who practice profiling and stereotyping according to race. 

Most white people do it. Even if you're not intellectually thinking it, you are instinctively feeling fear. The problem is that we aren't examining that fear when it happens, asking all the important questions of ourselves as to how it got there and why. Is it logical? Is it even true? Because those fears don't hold up in the face of the facts. No matter what you learned from your family, from television and movies, from media, our racist fictional narrative is not the same as statistical human reality.

If you need the statistics to prove it, I've got them. From a few years ago on the United States FBI criminal database.

If you need a reality check about who commits the overwhelmingly vast number of violent crimes in the United States, white people need only look in the mirror. There's your answer. Statistically, I ought to be far more frightened of a white man approaching me than anyone else.