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1 - Cycles of Racial Fear

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2022

Shawn E. Fields
Shawn E. Fields
Affiliation:
Campbell University School of Law
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Summary

A perverse cycle defines the history of fear-based racial segregation in America. Step one in this cycle begins with the creation of inhumane and unsustainable conditions for a Black underclass by the dominant White social caste. Step two involves the natural and justified resistance to this treatment by the Black underclass. That resistance—whether it be expressed as escape from bondage, civil protest against Jim Crow, or assertion of constitutional rights in encounters with police—is then turned against the resistors. This reframing becomes step three: White social leaders mischaracterize resistance as evidence of lawless, violent, criminal behavior, using the lie to stoke racial fear and justify further oppression.

Keywords

Slave CodesJim Crowbrute beastssuperpredatorswar on drugswhite spaceiconic ghetto
Type
Chapter
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Neighborhood Watch
Policing White Spaces in America
 , pp. 11 - 30
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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