Becoming ‘Objects of Fear’ and Relationships to Racist Thinking

In recent years it seems that violence against black folks has exponentially increased. However, the case is that this ‘exponential increase’ is really bringing to the fore historically persisting results of Jim Crow beliefs, laws, and practices. The ability to record such events so readily paints a façade of some increase in such racial violence. When the excesses of violence and discrimination against black folks has persisted for centuries. And the sociohistoric residue of folks’ attitudes and practices has perdured through the generations of individuals. How many times have we heard the phrase, “I’m not racist, I have black friends”? Or “I feared for my life, so I shot in self-defense”? This manuscript, as a continuing series of working hypotheses, contends that these events are related. Toward gathering the knowledge about individual reasoning processes, these events are related by either supporting or thwarting that racist thinking is a product of fear.