Those People Did Bad Things

Imagine that a power-hungry politician decides to stir up outrage by demonizing some people in your town. You might feel bad about what he's doing, but since you aren't one of "those people," you think it doesn't affect you.

However, people from outside your town become stirred up by the stories that are being told. Some of them pretend to be journalists and come to your town to "investigate." They either find a few people who are willing to get attention by confirming the rumors, or they find people who oppose the rumors and use them in an unfairly edited context to make it seem like they confirm the rumors.

More outsiders arrive, in a wave of hostile tourism, determined to "see for themselves." As the nasty rumors continue to be repeated, even some local people start imagining they might be true, although police, the mayor, the fire department, and most residents all say the stories are false.

Some angry people make threats against the people who have been accused. Some make threats against the city council. A few crazy people make bomb threats, leading to lockdowns and evacuations of businesses and schools, including the school where your kids are. Now, at last, it's affecting you.

 

Danger!

If someone pointed a gun at me, I would probably feel threatened. It's likely most people would. Yet there are some people who feel threatened, not in the presence of a gun or other weapon, but simply because of the mere existence of another person. The color of a person's skin triggers a fear reaction in some people, so they believe they are justified in violently "defending" themselves from the threat. Police who shoot Black people often claim they thought the victim was holding a weapon. When they know their bodycams are running, why do they lie? I think it's possible the terror they feel at the sight of dark skin might actually make them hallucinate a weapon or threatening gesture. Would better training fix this? I don't know. But perhaps people who fear the sight of brown skin could use desensitization therapy, like phobia patients. Or perhaps they just shouldn't work in law enforcement. ^@themrswest

Those People Are Dangerous

In the 1920s and 30s, there was a special propaganda technique used in Germany to make people hate and fear Jews and other minorities. If a Jew committed a crime, the news headline would state, "Jew convicted of theft", or "Jew murders neighbor", or whatever it was. They would often include a very unflattering photo, intended to reinforce racist stereotypes. If questioned (which rarely happened), they could point out that it was a true story, the Jew really did do that crime. But they never published headlines like, "Lutheran man accused of rape", or "Blonde Aryan girl caught shoplifting". The goal was to use this kind of repetition to make people feel that Jews were a class of criminals, responsible for most bad things. It worked pretty well, along with other tactics, and few German gentiles complained much when their Jewish neighbors were rounded up and "deported".

We see something similar here. The news site that proclaims, "Illegal immigrant robs Quickie Mart", or "Transgender athlete beats up on girls" never tells us that "Natural-born citizen shoots 5 people" or "Biological female stabs classmate". They are building a narrative about how the Other is bad and dangerous, even though this isn't supported by statistics. ^@themrswest



Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash