None of this initially happened in the McBride slaying. This then raises the always troubling suspicion the race played a role in her slaying. There\’s the horrid history of racial stereotyping, profiling if you will, that indelibly link crime and violence with African-Americans. This linkage isn\’t just confined to black men. There\’s the feminization of racial stereotyping too. While black men are frequently typed as violent, drug dealing \”gangstas,\” black women are typed as sexually loose, conniving, and untrustworthy. In effect, many believe that black women offenders are menaces to society too. Much of the public and many in law enforcement are deeply trapped in the damaging cycle of myths, misconceptions and crime fear hysteria about crime-on-the-loose women.The stereotype when lethal force has been used against young blacks has in a grotesque way given even more deadly justification to the dubious use of the stand your ground defense in these cases. The McBride case is no different. The delay in bringing any charges almost certainly hinges on Michigan\’s stand your ground law. The key provision of the law states that individuals may shoot if the individual honestly and reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent the imminent death of or imminent great bodily harm to himself or herself or to another individual. The operative words that virtually give anyone a license to use such force is \”honestly and reasonably.\” That\’s a murky legal minefield that\’s wide open to individual interpretation and prosecutors know this.
The Slaying of Renisha McBride Casts Another Ugly Glare on the Peril to Black Women | Earl Ofari Hutchinson
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