Racism and the Trayvon Martin Shooting
RSF grantee Sam Sommers has posted a provocative essay on Huffington Post about the Trayvon Martin shooting. While he notes the behavioral science research on the link between race and weapons bias, Sommers argues that the national dialogue about the tragic incident should move beyond determining if George Zimmerman, Martin's shooter, is racist:
[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 [partially funded by the Russell Sage Foundation] 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.
Read the full essay: Is the Man Who Killed Trayvon Martin a Racist? Who Cares? You can also read Sommers' RSF-funded research here.