As yet more evidence that American racism is not only pernicious but regularly mischaracterized and unexamined, the verdict in the Sean Bell shooting incident has brought a new round of admonitions to delete the word from any conversation about the case.

The premise of the no-racism argument is that two of the three New York City police officers who killed Bell hours before his wedding in November 2006 are, like Bell, black men and, therefore, were most unlikely to harbor racial animus toward Bell.

It is a common mistake, however, to presume that racism is only about racial hatred. That is its severest form, but there are others, including stereotyping and devaluing a particular ethnic group. Tragically, a person can hold such prejudices even against members of his or her own ethnic group, especially when those messages have been pervasive and constant, as is the case here.

Consider the instance of two young boys who went running, cash in hand, when they heard an ice cream truck in neighborhood. Unknown to them, the driver had exited the truck momentarily to use a nearby pay phone. So the boys simply waited by the truck until the vendor returned.

But, when the man looked up from the phone and saw two little black boys standing there, he flew toward the truck, waving his arms, cussing the boys, shooing them from his vehicle and threatening to “break your heads with my bat.” 

Although the ice cream man was black, is it unreasonable to believe he took the boys’ blackness into account and would have thought differently of two little white boys waiting by the open counter?

It is just as conceivable that two black officers, brewed and steeped in errant but conventional wisdom, leaped to a certain despicable conclusion about Bell and his two black friends as they came out of that Queens strip club in the wee hours of the morning.
They might have thought the trio looked like trouble and sounded like trouble and moved like trouble because black men are often presumed to be trouble on the move.

One of the officers said Bell tried to run down the officers with his car, even though it seems reasonable that a man who has had too much to drink and is scared out of his wits by the sight of three men looking like they’re ready for the showdown at the OK Corral might not lose control of the car when he’s trying to get away.

Another said he heard someone say something about a gun, even though none of the three young celebrants had a weapon.

That, as it turned out, was enough to license all hell to break loose. The white cop went wild, firing 31 of the 50 bullets that hit the men and their car.

“The officers responded to perceived criminal conduct,” said the judge who acquitted the three officers of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment.

We will stipulate that there is no evidence, nor even suspicion, that the three officers set out to maim or kill Sean Bell that morning. We will stipulate that, as the judge noted, “the incident lasted just seconds.”

But, we are not satisfied that the officers did not come upon the scene armed with preconceived notions about the conduct and intention of young black men, which may well have colored what they saw or thought they saw and distorted what they heard or thought they heard. 

What is typically called “racism” conjures lynching parties and cross-burnings. But the kind that assumes the worst of a person based on his or her color is just a deeper layer of the same skin. One hunts trouble, the other feels hunted by it.

And if a black man has been brainwashed about people who look like him, he can turn upon himself.