The story of the tragic shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin continues to unfold. Each day seems to bring with it a new revelation, whether an eyewitness coming forward for the first time or the release of a new audio recording. And a great deal of attention is being devoted to debating whether George Zimmerman -- the neighborhood watch captain who chased and confronted Martin after calling police to report that the African-American 17-year-old was acting suspiciously -- is a racist.
To this question I offer the following, less-than-nuanced reply: Who cares?
Is this really the question we should be asking right now? For that matter, is this a question on which we're ever going to come to any semblance of agreement?
Let me be clear: this tragedy is all about race. While some politicians have suggested of late that "race shouldn't be a factor" in discussing the case, it doesn't take a behavioral scientist to tell you that Zimmerman would have been far less likely to view an unarmed white teen outside a convenience store as suspicious or worthy of surveillance.
(Of course, this is also what the behavioral science tells us: that respondents in a study who first see a black face are more likely than those who first see a white face to mistakenly think an ambiguous object subsequently presented is a gun. And participants completing a video game-like police simulation perform similarly, becoming more likely to mistakenly push the "shoot" button when an unarmed suspect is black than when he's white. For that matter, subliminal presentation of crime-related images -- shown to respondents so quickly that they don't consciously know what they've just seen -- makes people pay more attention to black faces shown next, the mere unconscious suggestion of crime being enough to activate visual processing related to race.)
So why are we arguing about whether or not George Zimmerman is a racist? This is a word -- racist -- that we use in dispositional terms, to refer to a person's character or some sort of stable, internal belief system. And so we're subjected to a variety of unimpressive arguments on both sides of the debate:
We've been down this road before, haven't we? With a variety of celebrities, politicians and others who made inappropriate comments or jumped to conclusions about someone in a way that at least raised the possibility of racial bias... In each instance, our discourse on the event focuses on the question: is this person a racist?
But does it really matter?
Are the racist (or sexist or homophobic) slurs any less impactful when the person who utters them genuinely believes he doesn't have a bigoted bone in his body?
Does the race-tinged perception of an individual as more suspicious (or any other stereotypical assessment) become less problematic if the person who looked through those biased lenses otherwise has the best of intentions?
Is the threshold for avoiding a charge of prejudice really as low as having a few black friends? And, while we're at it, did you tell those black people when you befriended them that they'd be serving as your get-out-of-racism-free card?
For that matter, how can we ever expect the "Is s/he a racist?" question to lead to any sort of consensus? A few years ago I and a colleague published a series of studies looking at how people define "racist." The answer? We set the bar just past where we ourselves are. So what makes someone a racist? You may not know, but you do know it's not you.
Instead of arguing over who's a racist, let's shift the conversation to more important questions. Let's debate instead the underlying tensions and tendencies that contributed to Trayvon Martin's shocking death. About the implications of living in a society in which white parents rarely talk to their kids about race, but black parents have to warn their sons to bend over backwards to avoid so much as the whiff of suspicion at the convenience store or routine traffic stop. About what it means when our laws (and our culture) shift from duty to retreat to stand your ground.
These are tough, unsettling questions. It's less threatening to ponder who is and isn't a racist, especially since we're all so confident that this label doesn't apply to us. But arguing about who the racists are -- fruitless tilting at windmills that it may be -- remains the easy way out because it preempts wrestling with the harder questions raised by Martin's death.
In short, I don't know whether or not George Zimmerman is a racist. And frankly, I don't much care.
I do know that Trayvon Martin's death is a tragedy.
I do know that while it's unthinkably terrible to lose a child of any background, tragedies like this one are far too likely to befall African-American families (and even when not fatal, that similar outrages and indignities are suffered daily by a wide range of people of color in this country).
And I do know that to suggest that race shouldn't be a factor in talking about Trayvon Martin's death is at the very least hopelessly naïve and at worst a disingenuous effort to change the topic to one less threatening to the status quo.
If we're ready to have a serious conversation about racial bias in America, I'm all for it. Count me in. But that conversation can't just start and stop with empty, unresolvable arguments about "racists."
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Really???? Whether a person is racist or not will have a direct impact on how that person perceives you, relates to you and treats you. You don't think that if a police officer or fireman is racist that his or her ability to do what is required of them as it relates to a minority is going to be impacted?
Some people simply have no business speaking on these types of issues, not because they are not intellectually capable of doing so, but simply because they lack the proper perspective.
Whether this guy Zimmeran is a racist or not doesn't resolve the ultimately issue which is whether he shot and killed Trayvon Martin out of self-defense, but obviously Zimmerman's mindset prior to the encounter, and whether he is a racist, is crucial as to his motivations that night.
On the one hand the author states, "Let me be clear: this tragedy is all about race", and in the same breath, asks, "But does it really matter?"
Again, perspective is so important in dealing with issues concerning race.
I applaud your studies.. I have lived it and continue to encounter racial bias in subtle and direct ways.
If it walks like a duck...
I agree with you, with you blacks are profiled more suspiciously and aggressively. When conservatives say "well blacks commit more crimes," it doesn't mean the unwanted suspicion against one doing nothing wrong any less serious.
But it is also disturbing how quick the left is too quickly to link the specifics of this case to racial bias and presume that was the deciding factor even a factor at all in the outcome
"it doesn't take a behavioral scientist to tell you that Zimmerman would have been far less likely to view an unarmed white teen outside a convenience store as suspicious or worthy of surveillance."
Are we going to assume by the statistics that it raised his suspicion to a degree that he pursued him or presumed he was guilty?
Then are we supposed to make the obviously racist assumption that Trayvon was the first person to attack because blacks are more likely to commit violence?
Emmitt Till" case. It really concerns me that the key issue is not being dealt with .. it seems. The bottom line to this whole case rest on the fact that Mr. Zimmerman himself did not obey the law when he was asked not to follow the kid. Nope, he then took the law in his own hands and followed the child and I believe he got out of his car and followed him on foot.Now let's just stop right there and tell me who was right and who was wrong? For goodness sake the Adult did not listen to the law, and now he has all the rights of being defended.. Travon, cannot speak from the grave. Mr. Zimmerman involked the whole situation by being disobeying the law, and at that point Travon had the right to proceed and walk home.Maybe he was really stalking the kid, after all he knew he had a gun, Travon did not know that. Mr. Zimmerman you really did not have to kill that child, now did you?
I agree. That won't solve the problem. The conversation should start with child raising. I taught my kids about racism to not be a victim of it, and to enforce the idea that a racist of any color is unacceptable. My evidence to my kids was: kids that were in school with you K-12, will pretend to not know you months after graduation: they found that to be true.
I notice my grandson's: his most frequent playmate won't play with him when certain of his friends are present. He is 11 yrs of age, and has figured that race is a factor. The kids are probably following instruction; instruction that cultivate separatism and racism at an early age: worse yet, no clear explanation for parental instructions. I presume this because, when no other kids are around, the boy that tells my grandson he can't play, couldn't stay away from him. Until two weeks ago my grandson said, no more, you are not my friend, you only visit when no one else is around.
The moral here: spending time with people of color doesn't mean you are not racist, and worse, you may not know you are: just a habit you pice up as a child.