Underlying much of that subconscious racial bias is the most enduring, corrosive racial stereotype in America: the black-as-criminal mindset. Historian David Levering summarizes it:  “Whites commit crimes but blacks are criminals.” While whites can and do commit a great deal of minor and major crimes, the race as a whole is never tainted by those acts.  

But when blacks violate the law, all members of the race are considered suspect. Remember Zimmerman’s false syllogism? A few blacks committed burglary, Trayvon was black, therefore Trayvon was a criminal.  Similar logic is used daily in the assumptions police and citizens make about African Americans, especially young males. Lisa Bloom 2014.

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