Line #21 Main/ScaryMinoritySuspect


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5	When a crime happens, ranging from a petty theft to murder, who's the first person everyone blames? The TokenMinority character, of course--they just seem to have an evil look about them! This can be because their demographic is stereotyped to be full of criminals, they're seen as foreign and therefore untrustworthy, they're suspected of harboring racial resentment toward others, or they simply [[FaceOfAThug look strange and intimidating]]. If they're the sole minority character in the main cast, it'll often turn out that they're WronglyAccused and they were innocent all along--a RedHerring that's also designed to teach a PrejudiceAesop about the dangers of accusing people based on incorrect or outdated stereotypes.
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7	From the start, they may vocally assure others of their innocence from the get-go--which only serves to cast further suspicion upon them. Are they truly innocent and simply decrying the stereotype? Are they guilty and trying to misdirect people? Are they invoking this trope so anyone who accuses them will be MistakenForRacist?
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9	Very much a DeadUnicornTrope, and it's been seen as such for a long time. In 1928, Fr. Roland Knox wrote the "Ten Commandments" of the FairPlayWhodunnit, and Number 5 was "No Chinaman must figure in this story." [[ValuesDissonance Outdated racial terminology]] aside, it's a condemnation of stereotypical YellowPeril villains like Literature/FuManchu, who were always responsible for the crime because they're {{Inscrutable Oriental}}s with devious minds. Nowadays, it's almost impossible to find this trope played straight--mainly because creators want to avoid the UnfortunateImplications of frequently depicting minority characters as villains.
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11	Compare TheButlerDidIt and OnlyOnePlausibleSuspect. Compare and contrast FlawlessToken. Often overlaps with ScaryBlackMan, {{Middle Eastern\|Terrorists}} and SouthAsianTerrorists, RuthlessForeignGangsters, YellowPeril, and RoguishRomani.
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14	!!Examples:
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16	[[foldercontrol]]
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18	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
19	* ''Manga/CaseClosed'' inverts this. Whenever an American suspect is brought up, He/she is immediately the most suspicious, and when one is found innocent, people are surprised.
20	** In at least one arc, all the suspects were American, and the culprit turned out to be the one who was the ''most'' American. (Sometimes that meant the one who couldn't read Kanji, sometimes that meant the one who didn't know a certain Japanese custom, etc.)
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23	[[folder:Comedy]]
24	* Patrice O'Neal had a bit where he discusses how this trope makes him afraid when a white woman walks by him:
25	-->"Oh Jesus, I hope nobody kills this white woman because I'ma get blamed for it."
26	[[/folder]]
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28	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
29	* Desolation Williams at the beginning of ''Film/GhostsOfMars''. It doesn't help that he's a wanted murderer.
30	* Very little is known about the defendant in ''Film/TwelveAngryMen'' except that he's some kind of ethnic minority. Despite this, most of the jurors are eager to say he's guilty and get the trial over with, although only the most vindictive juror admits to outright racism.
31	* Inverted in ''Film/WhiteMansBurden''. Since the entire movie is a race flip, the whites are the scary minority suspects. The protagonist finds himself on the wrong end of it when two black cops harass him because he "fit the description" of another suspect. Another white man notes that black cops are scared of white ghetto people because they think they look like ghosts at night.
32	* An example that occurred from RealLife is shown in ''Film/TheTrialOfTheChicago7''. Bobby Seale had absolutely no association with the white defendants accused of inciting the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention and wasn't even in the city long enough to be caught up in them. But he ''was'' the co-founder of the Black Panther party, so the Justice Department threw his case in with theirs to make it appear that the protesters were affiliated with those scary Panthers.
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35	[[folder:Literature]]
36	* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
37	** Inverted in the book ''Literature/{{Jingo}}''. After an assassination attempt on a major Klatchian official, Commander Vimes of the Watch immediately suspects everybody ''except'' the Klatchians, [[spoiler:who turn out to be behind the murder attempt after all. They planted evidence to make it look like a hamfistedly racist frame job because they knew Vimes would "see through it."]]
38	** Coalface in ''Literature/MenAtArms'' is the FantasticRacism counterpart; a dwarf was killed, he's a troll, as far as Mayonnaise Quirke of the [[BadCopIncompetentCop Day Watch]] is concerned, you don't need any more evidence than that.
39	* Tom Robinson in ''Literature/ToKillAMockingbird''. Although Tom is a very nice man who isn't scary in the least, and of course, is completely innocent. However, most of Maycomb assume he is a scary minority suspect who did rape Mayella because of the prevailing racist attitudes of the time. [[spoiler:Even after ample evidence and testimony is submitted that proved that not only was Tom innocent (and in fact ''unable'' to do it since the bruises were done by someone left handed, and Tom doesn't have the use of his left hand), it was Mayella's ''own father'' that beat her after he caught her coming on to Tom, the jury finds Tom guilty. And Atticus suspects that most of the 'deliberation' was the rest of the jury browbeating the RogueJuror into submission.]]
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42	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
43	* Pretty much every episode of ''Series/LawAndOrder'' will have either him or one or more HighSchoolRejects as their first suspect of interest.
44	* Mocked on ''Series/TheWire''. When a white man is giving a description of Omar Little to Bunk, he describes Omar as huge and so is his gun. Bunk and another black detective share a chuckle over their in-joke: BNBG - Big Negro, Big Gun.
45	* Subverted in one episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}''. While the Scary Black Man the [=CSIs=] first suspect didn't actually kill the murder victim (the murder was actually done by [[spoiler:the white pedophile who offered his services as a "consultant" to Grissom]]), he ''did'' [[WouldHurtAChild viciously beat the victim and his friend]] while he was babysitting them, which made them run out of the house until they were picked up by the real killer. He's arrested on assault and battery charges; it's noted that he'd indirectly contributed to the boy's death even if he didn't actually kill the kid himself.
46	* Seen several times on ''Series/TheGoodWife''; season 1's episode "Conjugal" and season 2's "Nine Hours" are good examples. Both are [[RaceAgainstTheClock death row cases]] to boot.
47	* ''Series/{{Castle\|2009}}'' doesn't typically go for this, but it had a heck of a LampshadeHanging in one episode. A juror died in the middle of a trial, and another juror immediately skipped town, making himself look guilty. When they bring him in, he explains that he saw a "big, scary black guy" glaring at him as it happened and figured that meant he was next. Said big, scary black guy thus becomes a suspect but is quickly cleared.
48	* ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episode "The Fox" features one in the form of a victim's abusive ex-husband.
49	** On the other hand, the show usually subverts the trope. Police officers that the agents are giving their profile to, are often surprised (and sometimes not very happy) to hear that the suspect is probably white.
50	** Played with in "The Tribe". The FBI is called in on the assumption that a single Native American suspect murdered several people in an abandoned building (and thus that this person is extremely dangerous). When the FBI arrive however, they very quickly realize that there was more than one suspect. They also end up determining that the suspects were not Native American at all, but a weird club/cult of students who were framing the local tribe.
51	* ''Series/ColdCase'' often featured suspects who flat out admitted that they either fled from or refused to cooperate with the police, knowing that they'd be the prime suspect simply for being a black man in the vicinity of the white victim.
52	[[/folder]]

Context Main / ScaryMinoritySuspect