Ray comments on Black signaling
Scott Gabriel Knowles, a Drexel University disaster expert, interviewed Rashawn Ray for a discussion that is live streamed on YouTube and available on podcast. It is for a series called COVIDCalls, with this specific discussion called COVIDCall45. Their discussion was later picked up by Robert Huber of Philadelphia Magazine on August 15th. Knowles and Ray discussed the historical implications of Black men being perceived as threatening and how that relates to behavior in the COVID-19 pandemic. Ray notes, “Black men go through what we call in sociology a signaling process. They try to signal that they belong, they try to signal their social class,” Ray continued. If, for example, Black men go out for a run, “They do things like wearing alumni t-shirts, they run in well-lit areas, they run in places where other people are. They always have an ID on them. They wave and smile at neighbors.” Ray laughed. “Who does that? Running is difficult enough. . . . They do that so there’s a witness if something happens, which becomes important, but also to try to deflect from the stereotypes they know to exist about their own bodies. When you layer that with a mask, it becomes stereotypes on steroids.”
See the article in Philadelphia Magazine