• • • low end theory

abbyjean:

shedreamsofwar:

i notice two things about this video, tell me if i’m imagining this.

for one thing, the body language is vastly different between the two boys. the white kid looks completely at ease - he’s just kneeling on the ground, minding his own business - whereas the black kid seems less sure of himself - he glances around often and he never seems to find a comfortable position; almost as if he wanted to be ready should he have to run.

additionally, notice the colors they’re wearing. the white kid has a blue shirt on, and the black kid is wearing red. in any intro to psych course you will learn about the subliminal effects that different colors can have on your emotions and perception. they say to wear blue to a job interview, to give the subliminal impression that you’re trustworthy and honest. red is the opposite way in that it’s really strong…fire trucks are red, do you see where i’m going with this?

i think perhaps this experiment should be taken with a grain of salt.

i think there will never be an experiment identical enough to convince some people. there is always going to be something to pick at to justify the differences other than the race of the people involved.

all i can say is that if you think the color of the shirts is important and you’re pointing at the symbolism of the color red while simultaneously implying that the color of the individuals is not important and overlooking the centuries of historical symbolism attached to people of various races and the subliminal effects of those racial differences, then you are not going to be convinced. (and you’ve got a powerful will to ignore the realities of racism.)

I think abbyjean is on point, but this line of response is interesting to me. What are the signs that the white dude is “minding his own business”? Since when is seeming to “mind your own business” not a racial description? To say that he is minding his own business is probably to say at least one, but probably both of these two things:

His outward appearance does not, appear to bother others, in the sense of: “I was just minding my own business…”
He is tending to his property. Literally, that is, his mind is on his business, i.e. that which belong properly to him and not to others.

Saying that he was minding his own business, in both of these senses, is actually redundant. ”He is minding his own business” is another way of saying that the white guy appears to be actively being white. It is a way of saying that the majority of the walkers-by correctly interpreted his relationship to the bike as white, that is, as propertied.

The black kid, on the other hand “seems less sure of himself.” He does not appear to be minding his own business. This lack of sureness could, to be sure, potentially be read as a sign that he is in distress. But we don’t read black people like that. And we certainly don’t read black youth like that.

As the person above reminds us, when you are black, your lack of sureness, your failure to project a fully proprietary relationship to yourself and to the world of commodities (represented by the bike) is so easily interpretable as a sign of your (impending) criminality. The white walkers-by take it upon themselves to police who is and is not propertied. This racial way of looking allows this young man’s standing up to be interpretable as “he looks like about to run,” and it imagines that running away that has not happened as confirmation of the criminality that you have no confirmation of.

“About to run,” “unsure,” “looking around,” even “wearing red,” all of these, part of a descriptive arsenal that speaks race and explains away racism, all while allowing us to feel comfortable that we are simply offering a more neutral account of what’s going on. It is amazing how unsurprising it is that these people seem ready to put themselves in the place of the person who ostensibly owns the bike, to act in the name of a property owner whom they cannot see, but that the presence of this black person with tools in hand, standing next to a bike, seems to alert them to.

“It belongs to someone.”

They are so busy minding Someone Else’s Business.

(Source: sexgenderbody)