The Disproportionate Overrepresentation of Minority Youth in ...

Trust
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get worse, because there’s so much racism now, with all the cross
burnings and everything. I bet we’re going to have slaves again. You talk
to most white people, and they don’t want nothing to do with black
people. . .They’re like, ‘They should be slaves. That’s what they were
meant to be. That’s what they should always be.
When asked whether they trust people of the other race, the youth in both groups
indicated that they prefer to reserve judgment on the person until they know him or her. It
seemed as though many of the youth were making a conscious effort not to draw
conclusions based on skin color. As a white youth said, “All the ones that I know I can
trust, but just like if you walked up to a white person on the street, you’ve got to get to
know them before you can trust them.” Even those whites who had experience with
blacks in the past for the most part did not place their mistrust on the whole race but
rather on the individual. This was the position taken by most blacks as well.
The sentiments that emerge from the interviews help understand the results of the
self-report data. Fifty—one percent of the whites and 59 percent of the blacks said they
trusted only “some” of the members of the other race (Tables 1 &
2). Apparently, indicating “some” rather than “most” or “none” was the best way for
them to express their philosophy in the closed ended portion of the survey.
There were some blacks who do not see whites as individuals. These youth had
bad experiences with a few white people which they transferred to all white people. As
one black male said, “I don’t feel I can trust none at all.” The same applied to a few
whites who simply stereotyped all blacks as druggies, gang bangers, or crooks. Also,
there are definitely some racist whites in this age group, although they would appear to be