'Confirmation bias' has long history of helping whites demonize blacks

[jaysunb]

Does “confirmation bias” influence the way whites think about police shootings of young men of color?.

This bias is the tendency to interpret or remember information in a way that confirms what we already believe, and helps us to ignore new data. And it may explain the tension between white cops and black kids — and the public reaction to them — more than outright racism does.

Many of us think police must be in the right because we have internalized a fear of black males and assume that they are up to no good.

As Harvard sociologist Charles Ogletree has pointed out, “Ninety-nine percent of black people don't commit crimes, yet we see the images of back people day in, day out, and the impression is that they're all committing crimes.”
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Early in the history of slavery in the Western Hemisphere, notes Audrey Smedley, now professor emeritus of anthropology at Virginia Commonwealth University, blacks were not set apart from other laborers. The first slaves the English used in the Caribbean were Irish. And there were more Irish slaves in the middle of the 17th century than any others.

At that time, Smedley writes, African slaves and European slaves “worked together, they played together … they lived together” and color didn't “make much difference … because they were all in the same boat.”

One 17th century planter who wrote to the trustees of his company said, “Please don't send us any more Irishmen. Send us some Africans, because the Africans are civilized and the Irish are not.”

But plantations grew ever larger and the African slave trade exploded. To justify the cruelty of lifetime slavery, the myth had to be manufactured that blacks — especially men — were subhuman and violent. That image stuck.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-rivers-confirmation-bias-race-20141212-story.html

[alittlelark]

1. I never knew that......

WOW........


Thanks for posting that!