Thug-o-phobia:
Fear of Black Men as a Criminal Defense
Min. Paul Scott
You’ve seen the gag a million times on 70's sitcoms. A nerdy white guy rolls up on a group of tough lookin’ black dudes just chillin’ on the block, then all of a sudden the white guy yells for no apparent reason,
"Please, just take my wallet !!!" ...while the Black dudes look at him like he’s lost his darn mind.
I guess ole "Kneel and Bob" Allen must have left his wallet at home when he went to the potty in the park, last month.
Now many will quickly ask what rational person would believe such a cockamamy story ?
But hold on, now..
Allen is not the first one in history to cop the fear of a Black man plea...
How many cases of the slaughter of black men can be attributed to the fear of the rise of a "Nat Turner" type leading a mass insurrection against plantation owners during slavery ?
Also, one of America's biggest fears has been the rape of white women by Black men. (However, you gotta admit the fear of the rape of white men was kinda original.)
There are many cases, like those of the Scotsboro Boys who were accused of raping two white women in 1931 and Emmit Till who was murdered for whistlin’ at a white chick in 1955, where black men were prosecuted "southern style."
And who can forget the hysteria surrounding the Central Park Rape case that made "wildin" a household word in white America, back in 1985.
Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, author of the book "The Isis Papers" has chalked this paranoia off as "the fear of white genetic annihilation." To break it down, this means that if black men and white woman continue to have interracial relationships, in a few years , because of the dominance of the "black" gene there will be no more white people. A funnier more X-rated version of this theory was delivered by Warren Beatty in the 1998 movie, "Bulworth."
We must never forget the fictional black dudes that were accused of murders that white folks committed.
Remember Charles Stuart, the Boston man who blamed the murder of his wife on a black man or South Carolina’s Susan Smith who had an APB issued for black men, world wide, for the drowning of her children back in 1994?
Politicians have also found it politically expedient to blame "tha brotha’s," as well. Think back to 1988 when George Bush’s "Willie Horton" ads had white folks looking behind every bush for a black boogey man.
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