Interrogating Racial Violence

01/01/2014 Scholarship

By L. Song Richardson, Phillip Atiba Goff & Campaign Zero

Study: Recent reports demonstrate that black suspects die at the hands of the police at a rate five times greater than white suspects. While it is often tempting to suggest that differential rates of violence are due either to racial animus on the part of the police or, alternatively, to greater displays and acts of aggression by blacks, the social science highlight other possibilities. Both unconscious racial bias and self-threats can explain why racial disparities in police violence persist, with no signs of abating, despite the overall gentling of negative racial attitudes
and beliefs.