Crimes committed by white people, such as the bombing executed by Timothy McVeigh, the acts of torture carried out by soldiers in Abu Ghraib, the murder of unarmed protesters by Kyle Rittenhouse, the murder of grocery shoppers by Payton Gendron, are assumed to be acts of an individual, not reflective of the white race. But if a Black person commits a crime, it is used as further “proof” that Black people are prone to such behavior. As one researcher put it, a Black or brown person “seems to be always on trial.”
