Faye Z. Belgrave
Virginia Commonwealth University
fzbelgra@vcu.edu

Because black men are frequently stereotyped as being violent, they are more likely to be the recipient of violence by the police than any other racial/ethnic group. Implicit racial bias against blacks, especially black men, is not unique to the police but occurs widely in society. Most people are unaware of this bias, which can persist even among those who do not endorse prejudiced attitudes and behaviors. For black men, the outcome of these subconscious biases is that they are stopped, arrested, killed and generally fare worse in the criminal justice system than other racial/ethnic groups.

Research shows that black men are viewed as more aggressive, violent and hostile than other racial/ethnic groups. In fact, when images and symbols of black men are showed at a subliminal level, participants in laboratory studies engage in more aggressive and hostile behaviors than when they are shown images of other ethnic/racial groups. These automatic processes affect subsequent behavior as hostility and aggression leads to fear and and a heightened threat-perception level when a black man is encountered. So a black male who is simply walking down the street may be seen as potentially harmful and one who asks a question may be seen as aggressive and hostile. Research also shows that more negative attributions will be attributed to the ambiguous behavior of blacks. For example, the same behavior that is viewed as playfulness among white children is seen as aggressive behavior among black children. Thus it is not surprising that police are more likely to shoot an unarmed black man and less likely to shoot an armed white man. However, these automatic processes can be corrected with some effort. The first step is to acknowledge that they occur.  

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