Stop Expecting Black People to Be Superhuman in the Face of Fear

Making Room For Our Fear, Makes Room For Our Humanity

It’s always there. An undercurrent whenever an unarmed black person is assassinated by the police. People ask and wring their hands, “why did they behave that way?” If only they had been more compliant, more respectful, more subservient, remained calm. If only.

So much has been said about how much better black people under duress should have behaved if only they could have controlled themselves. Except, science has proven that people under acute stress can’t always control themselves.

The thing is, stress has significant, documented, and psychologically accepted impact on how human beings act and respond to external stimuli. Everyone is taught the flight or fight response that many animals, including humans, employ when placed in stressful situations. The mechanisms that start in the amygdala and result in the release of cortisol, energize the human body in predictable ways.

I myself have felt the impulse. Its compulsive, subconscious, and primal. We know and accept that the response to acute stress is to fight or fly and that this does not necessarily reflect some malicious intent or criminality on the part of the person subjected to such stress, but results from clearly articulated chemical pathways that remain outside of human control. An in depth understanding of this and other basic human psychological pathways should be a critical…