Stranger Danger is Real
But sometimes the call is coming from inside the horse
I finally, finally saw the movie, Sinners, this past week. (I know, Black card revoked). Set in the 1930s Jim Crow South, Sinners is a supernatural, Afro futuristic horror film. The story follows twin gangster brothers, both played by Michael B. Jordan, who return to their Mississippi hometown to open a juke joint—only to encounter a growing group of bloodthirsty vampires intent on feeding on them.
Annie, the love interest of twin Stack, and the movie’s biracial character, can pass. In other words, she, like me, is often mistaken for white. And still, she, like me, is treated by the other characters, her Black friends, as family.
But she is the first to turn.
“Did you know that’s a common stereotype?” I say to Lucas as we’re watching Annie return to the Juke Joint, hungry and eager to make her first kill. “That we’re not trustworthy.”
“Like a spy,” he responds without thinking.
It’s certainly not the most harmful stereotype, or the most inaccurate one. Annie is a spy—able to infiltrate Black spaces easily, certain she can blend into the white spaces she inhabits, too.
And, how else do we determine who we can trust? Stranger danger is real. People can be vicious, cruel, and threatening. So our brains use stereotypes to make assumptions about entire groups to try to stay safe—mental shortcuts to help us process social information more quickly.
The problem is these shortcuts are frequently wrong, oversimplified, and hard to unlearn—even when the people we know contradict everything we thought we knew about people like them. Worse, they can be weaponized against us through propaganda and dog whistles, activating our worst fears and darkest impulses.
Stereotypes like “immigrants are criminals,” “trans people are dishonest,” “Black people are lazy and unintelligent,” and “women are too emotional” are being used to strip us of our rights right now. As the dehumanizing rhetoric of those in power escalates, the danger grows.
It’s the oldest trick in the book: the Trojan Horse.
According to Greek mythology, after ten years of a pointless siege, the Greeks couldn’t break into Troy. So Odysseus came up with a plan: build a massive wooden horse, hide soldiers inside it, then pretend to sail away in defeat.
The Trojan Horse was designed to look familiar—something the average Trojan would not find threatening.
And so, the Trojans, thinking they’d won, seeing what they thought was a statue painted in the colors of their nation, dragged the horse into their city as a trophy. That night, the Greek soldiers crept out, opened the gates, and let in the rest of the army, who’d sailed back under cover of darkness. Troy fell that same night.
It is an innately human trait to define safety as the familiar. In infants as young as 6 months, scientists have observed the ability to categorize facial recognition by race. And toddlers and preschoolers have largely developed their food preferences based on family and cultural food offerings.
When we hosted three 13-year-old Chinese exchange students in our home one summer several years ago, one of the girls fell ill early in the trip. Though she spoke very little English and I spoke no Chinese, one word she kept repeating was clear: congee.
Through Google Translate, I eventually discovered she was requesting the Chinese porridge her mother made her whenever she was sick. I quickly rushed to the grocery store, gathering the necessary ingredients, struggling over the pot of simmering rice, sprinkling the broth with unfamiliar spices. She held the bowl to her nose, took one timid bite, then pushed it away in disgust and despair.
I had no idea how to make the traditional dish, let alone make it the way her mother did. I could not comfort her. Everything about me, about our home, was foreign.
But I understood. She was homesick and afraid. A small girl in a faraway country. I knew the feeling. We all do.
Later, when I asked the girls what they wanted to experience during their trip, they told me, “Apple pie, cheeseburgers, and a picnic.” Enduring images of Americana that hold no particular meaning to me.
But for many Americans, they do. Images of a bygone era—blankets at a park, fruit pies and fireworks, flags and crosses.
These are familiar images for some, shortcuts to the comfort of “home.” “Gifts” painted in the colors of culture and country. So it is no surprise, when people in the United States were offered a new era of increasingly repressive fascism cloaked in red, white, and blue, preached at Sunday service, it felt comfortable to many. Safe, even.
The irony is this: For thirty years, Conservatives warned of a government that would break into American homes without warning, violently repress freedom of speech, and declare war on its own citizens. Fearing a total takeover, they turned to the domination and force of that very government to fight actively against the people who could have prevented its rise—the people most targeted by all the invasive, oppressive techniques they’ve long feared: Black and brown people.
The same people who have always known the truth beneath those pastoral images of Americana.
The people who knew that strange fruit hung from the trees above those picnics.
That those crosses burned.
Who can you trust? How do you know you can trust them? It’s a question I’ve started to ask myself much more seriously lately, and I don’t think I’m alone. As we Americans witness ICE agents break down doors and drag children and the elderly from their homes, as we see people stepping up—hiding folks, helping them run, bringing them food, offering shelter in Minnesota, protecting day cares and hospital entrances—I’ve wondered: as signs of ICE presence begin appearing in my community, who can I offer that same solidarity? And, who might offer it to me?
In the first days of the pandemic, I was terrified when I made my first trip to the grocery store. I entered the double doors of my local Safeway wearing latex gloves and a double layer of surgical masks, only to spot my sister-in-law in a checkout line, irritatedly brushing past the other anxious shoppers similarly suited up. I scurried out of her view and pretended I’d never seen her. Embarrassed by my own caution, enraged at her disregard.
A few days later, she texted me, “What are you so afraid of?”
“Dying?” I wrote back.
“Wow. That’s dark,” she replied.
Was it? I wondered. I thought it was just true.
But as the days in isolation wore on, the distance between us grew. She, eager to get back to “normal.” Me, anxiously hunkered down, watching the death toll tick up and up and up. Our families, weekly regulars in each other’s homes until then, went many long months without seeing each other.
Big, family fights over Covid, George Floyd, and everything in-between ensued — once close, our relationship fractured, and has not recovered since.
Five years later, after the death of Charlie Kirk—a figure she’d come to see as a martyr—she posted to Facebook: ‘They killed a good Christian for no other reason than his belief. If that doesn’t wake you up, nothing will.’ I hardly recognized her.
They.
That word sat heavy on my chest. They—some nameless, faceless enemy. They—people like me. People who saw the world differently. In her mind, we’d become a threat. Not individuals with names and faces and complicated lives, but they.
And I realized: to her, I might be they too.
It chilled me to the bone. I don’t want to be they. I don’t want to be some disposable other to someone I love, or to anyone.
And so, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can and should change that. Fast.
The first thing to come to mind: My neighborhood book club.
About a year ago, my neighbor Susan decided to start one. I was hesitant—we don’t agree on much, and I knew it would take energy I don’t feel like I have. Social scientists call this “social friction”—the tensions that arise when people with different viewpoints come together. During the pandemic, many of us experienced reduced tolerance for it, myself included.
But building community, knowing my neighbors, refusing to dehumanize the people around me, is one of the most important things we can do to build resilience and increase our safety in these terrifying times. There’s no other way to do that than showing up. Learning who people are one awkward interaction at a time. We don’t have to be friends. We don’t even have to like each other. But we do have to learn to live together.
Because we need each other. Especially now.
And so, I joined.
What I’m reading/watching/thinking about/listening to:
I love Afro-futurism as a genre and this film did not disappoint. If you haven’t seen it, I don’t want to spoil anything. And if you have — let’s discuss, over coffee, IRL.
I’m making my way through Ted Hope’s list of 10 of the Boldest American Non-Corporate Fiction Feature Films, 2025 Edition and I loved this gem of a film. How do we know who we can trust? We don’t. We can’t. But, over time, we will (most of us, anyway) learn from the harm we’ve caused.
Our Migrant Souls | Héctor Tobar
I related to far more in this book than I expected to. Ultimately, being Latinx American is a third culture experience. One I can’t wait to delve deeper into this year in my writing, reading, and art.
Like a Ship (Without a Sail) | Pastor T.L. Barrett and The Youth for Christ Choir
This album (one of my all time favorites) has been soothing to my soul lately. Also: It reminds me of my grandmother SO much. She was an incredible piano player and often added her own call and response responses to every song she heard.
The Daisy Chain | Your Weirdo Friend
I liked this quick, barebones guide on how to start building a rapid response network in your neighborhood.
If you’re looking for organizations to support immigrants impacted in Minneapolis right now, this incredibly comprehensive list is a great place to start. Pick something and do it!
And finally, one small thing you can do for me:
Please like, comment, subscribe, and share! As always, thank you for reading. It means so much to me.
I loved every moment of this.
Stereotypes, prejudice, and the more general term of ignorance is how we manipulate, just as prestidigitators prepare audiences to be astounded and amazed.
You had referenced the pandemic that had been so devastating to the elderly, gay men and people of color, and your early fear of imminent death, which, in time, had subsided. Even Pew Research Center says that pandemic is now in the rear view mirror. However, Sun Tsu quite accurately told us that 1) all war is based upon deception; and 2) killing one will scare a thousand. Karl von Clausewitz by 1816 had figured out that that deception was simply an extension of policy by other means. Most in my business, intelligence, are aware that biological terror is the oldest form of WMD, but which even in the 4th Century BC had not been used by the Assyrians to kill, but rather to confuse. The objective of battle is to subdue your adversary's will to resist. Sometimes nuking two cities is overkill. And ICBMs and warheads don't go on sale at Target.
Get ready for a surprise. On February 4, 2020, for the PCR tests, and on March 27, 2020, for the vaccines, HHS Secretary Azar, using a law passed by Congress in 2006, the Pandemic & All Hazards Preparedness Act, establishing a procedure to issue an emergency use authorization, had determined that the public health emergency was a CBRN agent or agents presenting a heightened risk not of infection but attack. Similarly, we cannot use the Defense Production Act unless we are acting to protect the domestic production base in direct support of defense missions and programs, not some kid in grammar or even granny in an elderly care facility.
Why, if old people, gay people, and colored people were being killed didn't the police begin a manhunt to apprehend them? Everyone believed something else, detached from reality, and never called the police. Poor devils. https://youtu.be/435EOsgdims?si=BoLQ8PRN1wd-xzJ0