Imagine that there are 200 people in a building. No one gets in or out. Anyone can move about within the building, and interact with each other, but the rooms are small, and there are rarely more than three or four people in a room at a time. Now imagine that half the people are wearing blue shirts, and half the people are wearing green shirts. For reasons that don't matter, no one is able to remove, change, or cover up their shirt color.
So far, there doesn't seem to be a problem. Everyone appears to be more or less equal. Now let's add one additional complication. A news bulletin is posted that there are exactly TWO homicidal maniacs in the building. They are both highly skilled combatants, even if they look like they're not, and can kill or maim any single opponent almost instantly. Also, they are skilled at passing for normal, hiding their bloodlust until it is time to strike. It is unclear whether their attacks are completely random, or if they are triggered by some minor perceived offense by the victim. Finally, we don't know which two people are the murderers.
At this point, there is going to be a small measure of paranoia among the people inside the building. Everyone knows that there's a 1% chance that any other person might be one of the killers, so everyone is on their guard. People tend to avoid being in rooms with only one other person, preferring groups or three or four, or being completely alone. Even still, everyone treats everyone else the same way.
Now for the final ingredient. A follow-up bulletin is announced that although we still don't know the identities of the two maniacs (they also don't know each other), we have learned that both of the killers are wearing green shirts.
Suddenly, there's a change in power dynamics between those wearing blue shirts and those wearing green shirts. Even when neither of the killers is present, the fact that two green-shirt-wearing killers exist causes a drastic change in the way that people interact:
Every time two people are alone together in blue shirts, they can relax, because they both know that neither one of them is a killer.
Every time two people are alone together in green shirts, they will become suspicious of the other, acting cautiously and defensively. Even the killers themselves will become cautious among people wearing green shirts, due to the small chance that the other person might be an equal threat to themselves.
Every time two people are alone together wearing different colored shirts, the person in the blue shirt is going to be careful and defensive, probably being extra submissive to anyone wearing a green shirt, at least when they first meet. The person in the green shirt, even if not one of the killers, is going to be placed involuntarily in a position of presumed power.
Every time three people are gathered, and two of them are wearing green shirts, the person in the blue shirt is going to feel twice as endangered, and neither person in a green shirt can give any indication of NOT being the killer, out of fear of losing an advantage over the other person in the green shirt.
Every time three people are gathered, and two of them are wearing blue shirts, the people wearing blue will feel that they may be able to overpower the person wearing green. The person wearing green, even if not a killer, will assume this, and take on a more submissive role, out of fear that if that person is accidentally perceived as one of the killers, the two people in blue might panic and make a preemptive strike.
Every time a person in a any room alone, there is always the perceived possibility that one of the killers may enter the room. Those in green shirts have the opportunity to pretend to be one of the killers to scare away an actual killer, though not always convincingly. Those in blue shirts have no such opportunity.
The result is that people in blue shirts can only feel safe when gathered in groups of other people wearing blue shirts, people in blue shirts feel especially endangered in all other cases, and all people in green shirts are always somewhere in the middle, feeling slightly threatened, but not completely threatened. People in blue shirts must pretend to be submissive when meeting a new person in a green shirt, and people in green shirts must act extra benign when meeting a person in a blue shirt, and act potentially-but-not-definitely threatening when meeting a person in a green shirt. Everyone in a green shirt feels the need to prove that they are not the killers, and no one in a blue shirt has any real reason to accept their proof. Keep in mind that all of this was brought about by ONE PERCENT of the population.
Now all of this thought-experiment is pretty straightforward. There are only two groups separated by one defining characteristic. In the real world, however, there are multiple separating identifiers, black-or-white, rich-or-poor, male-or-female, gay-or-straight, native-or-foreign, old-or-young, abled-or-disabled, socialist-or-capitalist, cis-or-trans, fashionable-or-unfashionable, tall-or-short, fat-or-thin, nerd-or-jock, police-or-civilian, primary spoken language, and all the various religions. It becomes even more complicated when the various news outlets telling the public who they should see as a threat becomes contradictory. One source tells the blacks to fear the whites, and another tells the whites to fear the blacks. The result is everyone seeing everyone else as different threat levels at different times under different circumstances, and the power dynamics are changing constantly. You could have two people interacting with both of them acting aggressively out of fear of the other, or just as easily, two people becoming simultaneously passive for the same reason. You could have groups of people seeing the room in radically different ways, with one person judging the room on black-to-white ratios, and another on male-to-female ratios, getting completely different results where they stand in relation to everyone else. Then there's the additional complication of stereotyping people's attitudes on one criteria based on another, such as "a person of this religion wouldn't judge someone on color," or "a person with this economic philosophy is also likely to have that view on gender roles." Another complication is when people start anticipating what other people want them to say or do, assuming that "if this person is in this group, then they would be a threat to me, unless I trick them into thinking I'm in that group, by acting this way toward this other group." As if that's not complicated enough, let's throw in the added factor of microaggressions and dog whistles. One media source might imply that if a person uses a certain word or makes a certain gesture, that it has some added hidden meaning. Let's say someone has an itch and scratches his ear, unaware that the other person has been told that this is a threat. An observer might feel threatened and assume a submissive role, or feel threatened and become more aggressive in retaliation, or worse, some aggressor-in-waiting might misinterpret the gesture as a "go ahead and be aggressive, I've got your back" signal. They layers of complexity keep piling on.
The point of it all is that power dynamics are often much more complicated than simply "group A is oppressing group B," and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can get to the root of the problem. Let's find those initial two killers and arrest them, so the other 198 people can finally relax and be themselves.
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