You can predict how many blacks are killed by police by measuring the racism of whites, research fin
Some of the stereotypes that prevail in a given geographic area go unrecognized by the people who hold them, and even more often, they’re not acknowledged. But psychologists know that such bias is widespread.
New research finds that when more white people in a community hold African Americans in greater suspicion, that prevailing view may influence police behavior in ways that drive the outsize use of lethal force against African Americans by cops.
It’s a finding likely to stir controversy and spark new interest in the phenomenon of implicit bias — the beliefs and prejudices we hold beneath our level of awareness.
Studied and measured by psychologists since the early 1990s, these unconscious views, which sometimes conflict with the opinions we explicitly embrace, are thought to shape our behavior every day. That influence may be subtle, psychologists say. But it’s never more powerful than when we are under extreme stress or time pressure, as police officers often are.
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http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-racism-whites-blacks-20170727-story.html