The motives for this conspiracy of silence are by no means all bad in a society that is already split along color lines. But the unwillingness to confront its racial component head-on has warped and stymied the political debate over crime. For years liberal Democrats were afraid to talk tough on crime, lest they be branded racist. As a result, Democratic leaders were accused of coddling criminals. Republican politicians have pandered to white fear, but they have been deliberately coy about it, using code words and thinly veiled messages like the GOP’s infamous Willie Horton ad in 1988.
The political gamesmanship masks a fear that is real and deep. To many TV viewers, the scariest image of the L.A. riots was the live film of white truckdriver Reginald Denny being dragged from his truck by black youths and repeatedly bashed on the head. It brought home a primitive nightmare of many middle-class whites, that their cars and homes and families could be invaded by marauding black men.
The fear is greatest of inner-city youths, in high tops and gang colors. But all blacks are tarred to some degree. Legal experts argue that this may account for higher conviction rates and harsher sentences for black defendants. Last year a University of Chicago study found that 56 percent of whites believed that blacks were “prone to violence.” In focus groups conducted by business consultants, whites characterize a black man speaking forcefully at a meeting as “hostile” or “threatening,” while they see a white man behaving the same way as “aggressive” or “determined.” Black men are familiar with the chill. Women hug their pocketbooks closer when a black man passes by; taxicabs routinely refuse to pick up black men, even well-dressed ones. Hollywood is not above using white fear to titillate. In “Boyz N the Hood,” director John Singleton intended to portray real life in the ghetto, but the aim of film distributors may have been to attract white audiences by giving them a good scare.
To be sure, there is a basis for the fear of black inner-city youth. They commit a vastly disproportionate amount of crime. Nationally, about a quarter of all African-American males between 20 and 29 are in jail, on parole or on probation. But the fear can cut the other way as well. The most law-abiding black teenager fears the police, and often with reason.
And, of course, most of the victims of black crime are black. AfricanAmericans are 70 percent more likely than whites to be victims of violent crimes. In Los Angeles last week, President Bush heard a tearful black woman describe a neighborhood so violent that she forbids her grandchildren to play in the park. Few whites have to worry about drive-by shootings on their block. In fact, contrary to conventional wisdom-and the paranoia of some white homeowners-suburban crime has declined slightly in the last 20 years. In 1973 almost 3 percent of suburbanites suffered a violent crime; in 1988 (the last year for which statistics are available) just over 2.5 percent were victimized.
Law-and-order sentiments run just as strong, if not stronger, in black neighborhoods as they do in white ones. In Chicago, white civil libertarians wrung their hands last year when the city’s public-housing authority conducted random police sweeps to drive out gang members and drug dealers who had taken over vacant apartments. The projects’ tenants, on the other hand, cheered loudly.
But the realities of race and crime can be easily obscured in an atmosphere where only the extremists speak out. David Duke, a Klansman with a face-lift, became a national figure by playing on white paranoia. Black charlatans like the Rev. Al Sharpton attract TV cameras wherever they go by posing as victims of a vast white conspiracy to exterminate the black race. It’s not surprising that some African-Americans, even middle-class blacks, believe that the white power structure has cooked up something called The Plan to wipe out black men with drugs and AIDS.
Fear will only worsen matters if it drives whites deeper into the suburbs. But fear may be the only way to get whites to pay attention to the wretched conditions of the inner city. In an age of “compassion fatigue,” white voters aren’t likely to want to do much about the plight of poor blacks unless they feel personally threatened. Denying that fear exists only leaves the field open to exploitation by politicians and extremists. It may seem ironic to suggest that fear could help bridge the gap between the races. But it could-if only we admit it.
