Milgram’s social experiment was an experiment in which laypeople (all white and male) were asked to deliver shocks to actors at the instruction of a scientist. The actor would beg the participant to stop delivering shocks, but the scientist would continue to insist that they continue, relieving them of responsibility if the actor “died,” which it was heavily implied they would. The significant majority delivered what would have been a killing shock, to the surprise of many of the scientists working on it. It was found that a lot of humanity (or, at least, white males) had the capacity for murder if instructed to by the right people; there was a clear blind trust for authority figures. On July 17th, 2014, Eric Garner died from a cop’s
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However, there is one thing present in Milgram’s social experiment that can be found here: blind trust in authority. While this certainly isn’t everyone, since riots did break out in multiple places after many of the aforementioned deaths, an overwhelming amount of America has refused to even consider the idea of institutional antiblack racism in the police force despite overwhelming evidence of its existence. Since childhood, much of America has been socialized to see the police as people who could help us when we didn’t know what to do. We were told that if we were ever lost, not to go up to a stranger, but a police officer, who we could trust. Police officers have always been authorities to us; just like Milgram found, we can do ridiculous things in the name of pleasing authority, like assume that it was the unarmed teenage boy’s fault that he got killed, not the fault of the grown man who fired the thing. Of course, there’s more to the situation than that. Much of America has been socialized to be racist against black people without realizing (it’s been found that it’s easier to get a job being white with a criminal record than being black without one, and much of these people probably weren’t outright racist), and America’s history of racism is one that many of its citizens refuse to acknowledge; sweeping away racism in the police is just
However, there is one thing present in Milgram’s social experiment that can be found here: blind trust in authority. While this certainly isn’t everyone, since riots did break out in multiple places after many of the aforementioned deaths, an overwhelming amount of America has refused to even consider the idea of institutional antiblack racism in the police force despite overwhelming evidence of its existence. Since childhood, much of America has been socialized to see the police as people who could help us when we didn’t know what to do. We were told that if we were ever lost, not to go up to a stranger, but a police officer, who we could trust. Police officers have always been authorities to us; just like Milgram found, we can do ridiculous things in the name of pleasing authority, like assume that it was the unarmed teenage boy’s fault that he got killed, not the fault of the grown man who fired the thing. Of course, there’s more to the situation than that. Much of America has been socialized to be racist against black people without realizing (it’s been found that it’s easier to get a job being white with a criminal record than being black without one, and much of these people probably weren’t outright racist), and America’s history of racism is one that many of its citizens refuse to acknowledge; sweeping away racism in the police is just