One of the reputable news sources I go to with regularity is The Conversation.  I recommend it.

Today there is a post regarding research done on the reporting of mass shootings, and specifically on the characterization of the person doing the killing*.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a stark difference in how White American killers are portrayed, vs. Latinos or African Americans.  (BTW fewer than 1% of the cases studied from 2013 -2015 featured female killers).

The above chart is featured in this report, and I encourage the readers to read it, and then commit, or re-commit, to the practice of telling new and different stories (to ourselves) about people for whom we may hold bias – the poor, the racially different from us, the ethnically or religiously different, etc.

I find this to be a useful practice:  I tell myself a different, interesting, perhaps compassionate story about the person I see that normally I would brush off, or otherwise rapidly categorize in some way.  So when I see the young and hoodied person of color looking shiftless on the sidewalk, I remember my own youth.  I remember being shy.  I remember seeking to hide in my clothing.  I remember following fashion trends (to my close friends, that comment will make them laugh out loud).

And then I seek to look him in the eye, and smile.

Good luck 🙂