I am tired of reading about another black male being shot by the cops. It seems like the cops are shooting some innocent black guy every day.
I don't remember this happening when I was a kid. There were accusations of police brutality, but I don't remember cops killing black people every day.
But now blacks are being shot by cops so often, that many black parent's worry that their kids may be killed for "driving while black". They teach their kids to fear for their lives at a routine traffic stop, because they could end up being shot. Apparently being shot by a cop is the main danger black people face. And I know they're right, because I see it all over the news, every day. Black Lives Matter was formed out of necessity to help stop the wholesale slaughter of black people by cops. The Black Lives Matter website states their purpose is:
"to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes."
But is this really true? Is there really a race war going on in the United States? Are black people correct to be more afraid of being killed by a cop, than by other people? Is violence being inflicted on Black communities by "the state and vigilantes"?
I think the facts say otherwise. Here are 4 things I've figured out. These comments are based on easily available official numbers and my opinion and observation. If you disagree, fine. Tell me how I'm wrong.
If you are black, you have about 32 times more risk of being killed by a non-cop, than by a cop. About 32 blacks are murdered, for every 1 killed by a cop, and those killed by cops are thoroughly reviewed and in almost all cases, are deemed a justifiable use of force. In 2019, there were 7,484 black people murdered by non-cops and 234 killed by cops.
Almost all black murder victims are killed by other blacks. People of all races are more likely to be murdered by the people they live around. Because people tend to live in communities of their own race, when they are murdered, it is almost always by somebody of their own race. For example, 88.5% of black murder victims were killed by other black people, and 80.2% of white murder victims were murdered by other white people. Murder in America is not driven by racism. It is not one race killing another race, it is criminals killing innocent people.
Cops kill more white people than black people. Using official numbers we find that cops kill white people about twice as often as they kill black people. In 2019 there were 457 white people killed by cops vs 234 black victims. Why haven't we heard about this from the mainstream media?
A black person's main danger is NOT getting killed by a cop. A strung out neighborhood addict, an out of control criminal, a local gangbanger, an estranged family member: yes. A cop: no. Violence is not being inflicted on black communities from the outside, it is coming from inside the black communities, just as it is in white communities. Black Lives Matter's website is wrong.
Is this the whole story? Blacks kill blacks, whites kill whites and cop killings are insignificant compared to the overall murder rate?
Well, actually: no. There is more to it. Here is the deeper story that somebody doesn't want you to know.
Black people make up 40 million (40,610,815 to be exact) of the total U.S. population and experience about 7,484 murders each year. That means blacks have a 1 out of 5,426 chance of getting murdered each year. (Mostly by other black people.)
White people make up about 234 million (234,370,202 to be exact) of the U.S. population and about 5,787 whites are murdered each year, or about 1 out of 40,499 (not a typo!).
See the difference? One out of 5,426 for blacks vs 40,499 for whites. In other words blacks are murdered about 8 times as often as whites, as a percentage of their population. Cops aren't the danger, but being murdered is definitely a concern if you are black.
Focusing on the non issue of cops killing blacks, makes us miss the big picture, which is the extremely high murder rate in the black communities. Who benefits from us missing the big picture? Who benefits from blacks falsely worrying about cops instead of the real threat?
Some of these same people try to distract us with the claim that the black population is only 1/6 that of whites and hence there should only be 1/6 as many blacks killed by cops as whites. But that ignores the crime rate. All things being equal, cops would be expected to use deadly force as a percentage of their arrest rate. After all if there were no arrests, you would expect deadly force to drop to zero. As the number of criminals needing apprehension and arrest go up, the use of deadly force would be expected to go up, too. When the black murder rate is 8 times higher than the white murder rate you would expect the use of deadly force to go up by the same factor of 8. If so, the 234 black people killed by cops in 2019 would have been 575. Consider that.
A black criminal being arrested actually has a lower risk of being killed by the cops than a white person. A significantly lower risk!
What do we need to do next? The mainstream media needs to be honest with the public. They need to give the correct level of news time based on actual prevalence.
Because white people are killed by cops at about twice the actual rate and 3 times the adjusted rate based on arrests, the media should devote 2-3 times more coverage of whites killed by cops than blacks. But most importantly, because non-cops kill blacks 32 times as often as cops, it should receive 32 times as much attention.
If the media produced this type of honest, balanced coverage, people would immediately realize cops killing blacks is not the issue. They would see the murder rate is the real issue, and the public would demand changes. Heads would roll, and perhaps these people, who would lose their job are the people that currently benefit from the dishonest media coverage.
Please help get the word out. People need to know that cops are NOT the problem. Share this article with as many people as you can.
CW Jasper
May 2021
P.S. Coming soon: Proven methods to reduce the murder rate. Why won't Chicago and other high crime cities use proven methods?