GAZETTE:  Many police departments, particularly those in Black and brown neighborhoods, have been criticized for having an “us vs. them” attitude. Our politics, in recent years, has successfully encouraged voters to take an “us vs. them” attitude toward those with different ideological viewpoints. Is that “us vs. them” dynamic what’s happening with police violence in Black neighborhoods? What’s at work cognitively/sociologically when we see the world in binary terms?

BOBO: We certainly do inhabit an incredibly politically polarized moment. And it is sad, but hopefully we are nearing the nadir, the low point, of that moment, and we’ll someday see our way out of this great chasm. The saying used to be, “If you’re in a hole, the most important thing is stop digging.” Unfortunately too much of our political leadership is continuing to dig because it has been profitable for them in terms of holding onto a shrinking coalition and political power.

I am heartened by the diversity and array of individuals who turned out for the civil protests and do believe that in a way that will ultimately prove to be the great majority of the American people. But this is a deeply polarized ideological moment we’re in, this moment of really serious economic inequality, a level of economic inequality that has had really unfortunate political consequences where extremely wealthy, well-connected segments of the population exercise really significant, almost veto power over so many aspects of our economic and political system that many people are feeling deeply frustrated and left behind, and I think people are easily sold on scapegoating political messages rather than doing the kind of deeper analysis that would get us toward constructive response to these circumstances.

Racism in some respects remains the core of this, but it’s not the only thing operative. There are issues of economic class inequality, ideological and political polarization, and exploitation of the circumstances, and there are aspects of just the nature of the job of policing in such an unequal society that lend themselves to these potentially explosive encounters.

GAZETTE:  Why are we racist? What are the cognitive drivers of racism?

BOBO: There’s no simple answer. It’s a combination of things. It’s partly historical circumstance; it is partly how we have organized relationships in particular, what kind of forms of thought, action, and behavior have become codified in law and routine practices.

So, for example, our society used to recognize a far more complicated set of racial gradations than we typically think in terms of now. If you were to go back to the 1870, 1880, 1890 censuses, you would see categories on the census form for, of course, white, but you would also see colored Negro, Black, mulatto, quadroon, even octoroon, that were recognized categories of color and racial gradation. When slavery was finally completely crushed, and when the effort to reconstruct the South was defeated, we suddenly had a world in which those who held power in the American South decided they needed a sharp Black/white dichotomy in order to maintain control of the Black population. And they enacted a set of laws that basically said there are two categories of people, Black and white, and that any drop of African ancestry basically made you Black. And we created the role of hypodescent. The important point to note is that had not always been the case. But it is a very powerful cultural trope now, and that’s because we institutionalized it in law, day-to-day practice, and ultimately, therefore, widely shared, deeply rooted commonsense understandings. That sadly is where we are here.

GAZETTE:  Does that account for the level of brutality we’ve seen in so many of these cases?

BOBO: How does a police officer place his body weight on a man’s neck while two or three other police officers mill around? Well, there’s obviously a profound “othering” that has gone on. You are clearly no longer regarding that other individual as someone who’s due the kind of regard that you yourself would expect from anyone else. That the other officers so casually walked around, took notes, just stood there chatting, bespeaks a wall of everyday routine and indifference that has such profound cultural roots at this point that it’s not just unconscious bias. Sadly, it is the state of our culture in many circumstances, especially as it manifests itself in the particular circumstance of police encounters with African American individuals and communities in too many circumstances.

GAZETTE:  Critics say the Minneapolis Police Department culture tolerates or rewards unethical behavioral, as demonstrated not just by the officer who pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck, but by the others who did not intervene. Broadly, the law enforcement profession is often seen as adopting a code of silence when faced with criticism. What dynamics shape or contribute to this kind of organizational culture? Does it vary by profession?

BOBO: It varies from profession to profession. And of course in policing, we have to recognize that it is a high-risk profession. We expect and demand a lot of law enforcement officials. But in those high-risk professions, it’s often the case that very, very strong norms of solidarity develop. And those kinds of norms of solidarity and mutual support are reinforced by organizational practices, the routines of their work, the training that goes on, so that I think you’re more so inclined there than in many other settings to get a degree of social conformity and deference to your fellow officer and those of higher authority, if for no other reason than a purely defensive one — we have to stand together in order to survive. And there are obviously ways to intervene in this, but it’s hard to intervene in an American culture that is otherwise so suffused with access to guns and an image of police as dominating and assertive and controlling, rather than supportive and aiding and working with communities. So cultivating a whole new understanding and way of doing policing is really just critically important to usher in debate. And in my experience, frankly, many, many higher-ranking police officials are eager to do that. But how they move forward on it in a context of rank-and-file unions and the high solidarity among the rank and file is a hard task and one that requires some real planful action.

GAZETTE:  A number of police departments have tried to address implicit bias and culture change through training. Why hasn’t it been more successful?

BOBO: Because the problem is not just one of implicit bias. For example, you can try to train officers to be more reflective and to recognize that we have all grown up in a culture that is filled with negative ideas and images about African Americans as violent, as dangerous, as threatening, as lesser. That kind of devaluing of Black life, sadly, is a part of the American cultural fabric. Not as extreme as it used to be, but still very clear and very deeply rooted. And so, if you have that kind of layering out there and at the same time police departments are told, “Look, we are now going to wage a war on crime, and you’re expected to demonstrate progress on that war on crime.” The easiest way to do that, the one with the least blowback, is to redouble if not triple your efforts in policing the weakest segments of society. We know from many different sources, the actual consumption of illegal drugs and substances does not appear to vary by race. However, the odds of being arrested are enormously unequal by race, and the odds of then being convicted and serving jail time even more radically so. That is a function of where policing agencies decide to focus their gaze. So we’ve got policies, interacting with culture, interacting with psychological processes that are continually reinforcing this systematic inequality.

GAZETTE:  We’ve seen violence and aggression this week across the country between police and sometimes U.S. military forces on one side and peaceful demonstrators, looters, and provocateurs on the other. Do outward displays of dominance over the less-powerful — like police striking an unarmed Black person or a news camera operator — or mayhem against institutional power — like setting fire to police cruisers or throwing things at officers — scratch the same psychological itch? Why does that attract some but repel others?

BOBO: We live in such a complicated and contradictory moment that it’s hard to put your finger on any one thing. There’s certainly a powerful body of research in social psychology suggesting that some individuals and indeed, on average, some members of more privileged groups tend to be more supportive of maintaining inequalities and asserting a certain level of dominance and control and a social order. For good or ill, policing is the sort of profession that both selects for, and in some ways probably encourages, that sort of inclination. I’m still optimistic that there is a lot of widely, widely shared upset and anger about this ongoing litany of unarmed minority civilians who end up suffering and dying at the hands of those who should be serving and protecting us all in an equitable way. And it is sad, but real, that some people are exploiting this moment to pilfer, to rob, to loot, or to engage in fights with police. Some of them may be provocateurs on the right and from white supremacist groups, some of them may be provocateurs on the left, from Antifa or what have you. But there’s a much larger number, I do believe, of people of genuine goodwill who have higher aspirations, who want to see a better world in this regard. What worries me most right now is less those disruptive forces on the street than the dangers we all face if a democratic society descends into heavy-handed, militaristic regulation of its own citizens who are expressing a legitimate grievance.

GAZETTE:  What would be that moment for you that would suggest when we have crossed that line?

BOBO: Truthfully, I don’t know. The last three years have brought one moment of shock and awe after the other, as acts on a national and international stage from our leadership that one would have thought unimaginable play out each and every day under a blanket of security provided by a U.S. Senate that appears to have lost all sense of spine and justice and decency. I don’t know where this is. I think we’re in a deeply troubling moment. But I am going to remain guardedly optimistic that hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, the higher angels of our nature win out in what is a really frightening coalescence of circumstances.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.