While both sides obviously play a role, the words officers use are critical. They can communicate respect and understanding or contempt and disregard. They can calm a worried motorist down or make them more anxious.
Related Quotes
Many who analyze events leading up to tragic accidents such as this one-which could have been avoided had the junior officer spoken up-cannot help pointing out that people should demonstrate a bit more backbone. Courage. It is impossible to disagree with this assertion. Nonetheless, agreeing doesn't make it effective. Exhorting people to speak up because it's the right thing to do relies on an ethical argument but is not a strategy for ensuring good outcomes. Insisting on acts of courage puts the onus on individuals without creating the conditions where the expectation is likely to be met.
As O’Barr had predicted, slight differences in wording changed how the witness was perceived. Speaking like a professional made the witness seem more credible. Listeners saw them as more trustworthy, competent, and convincing, and were more likely to believe what they had to say.
Being nice is good, but eventually decisions need to be made and problems need to be solved.
And that is where less emotional, more cognitive language becomes important. Indeed, when customer service agents used more emotional language at the beginning of conversations, and more cognitive language in the middle, customers were more satisfied with the interaction and purchased more afterward.
Don’t just solve. And don’t just connect.
Connect, then solve.
And the difference wasn’t driven by just a couple of rogue officers. Among hundreds of officers, whether White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, or other, the pattern persisted: Black motorists were treated with less respect.
The Stanford study raises a host of important questions. It’s easy to call police officers racist or point to this as evidence that the police are out to get African Americans. And that is certainly one way to see the results.
But the truth is likely both subtler and more complex.
Some individual officers may be racist. And given the broader actions of individual officers in particular high-profile cases, this is almost certainly the case.
But regardless, even if it isn’t intentional, a much larger portion of officers are treating White and Black people differently. Most officers likely mean well and are simply doing the best they can in difficult situations. But whether they realize it or not and whether they mean to or not, the words they use differ. And this makes the underlying problem even more challenging to solve.