White Lynchings, Black Murders

So 60 minutes had a piece on lynchings. I've no problem with going into that subject. History is history and has lessons for everyone. Here it is:

However there were two things that I think should be noted about this era in American history that everyone and particularly African-Americans should be cognizant of:

Bryan Stevenson: We want to call this community to repentance, to acknowledgement, to shame. We want to tell the truth, because we believe in truth and reconciliation but we know that truth and reconciliation are sequential. We can't get to where we're trying to go if we don't tell the truth first.

So far, Stevenson's team has chronicled more than 4,300 lynchings. They continue to find more.

This is in line with the NAACP report on the total number of lynchings in the US:

From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. Of these people that were lynched 3,446 were black. The blacks lynched accounted for 72.7% of the people lynched. These numbers seem large, but it is known that not all of the lynchings were ever recorded. Out of the 4,743 people lynched only 1,297 white people were lynched. That is only 27.3%. Many of the whites lynched were lynched for helping the black or being anti lynching and even for domestic crimes.

So in a space of 86 years we have the statistical average of 55 lynchings per year or just under 1 every 8 days or so. Lets call it once a week.For the entire country. Indeed no one should be lynched. And we should not look upon those days as something good. However; when we look at it as murder, the carnage that black people, particularly black men do to each other makes the lynch era of the United States look like utopia.

US News and World Report noted for 2015 the following:

What we see here is that on average, between 2001 and 2015, roughly 3,000 black people were killed by other black people.Per year.That is nearly 2 orders of magnitude higher than the lynching era of the US. For those who don't know, an order of magnitude is multiplying by 10, otherwise known as moving the decimal point over one place for each order.

To look at it another way, if we look at the 15 year span we find 45,000 dead black people. That is 10 times more than the 86 year span of lynchings. And that is only accounting for 2001 to 2015. If we were to extend this back to 1969 and come forward, we would see a far far higher number. So while it is completely acceptable to discuss the lynching era as the stain the country that it is, to act as if a far more deadly (and I can say fratricidal) phenomenon is occurring right now. And no amount of staring back at lynchings is going to solve that problem. Which brings me to the second issue.

Since 60 minutes has generally ceased to be a news organization, it allowed Oprah and her guest, Walker to make the totally speculative and incorrect statements:

Stevenson wants people to understand that lynchings were not just brutal footnotes in history, they reflected a belief in racial differences that reinforced segregation in the 1950s and 60s, and, he says, has resulted in a pattern of unequal justice today.

Bryan Stevenson: And now we live in a landscape where you see young black boys and men being rounded up. One in three black male babies born in this country is expected to go to jail or prison.

Oprah Winfrey: You actually think that slavery and lynchings led to African-Americans being disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system?

Bryan Stevenson: Yes, I do. And I think, actually, it's not a hard thing to understand, you know, I look at--

Oprah Winfrey: I think it is a hard thing to understand for people who think people get locked up, people are locked up because they commit crimes.

Bryan Stevenson: About 13 percent of the people illegally in possession of drugs in this country are black. That's about our proportion of the population. You know what percentage are arrested? That's about 35 percent. That is an echo of this consciousness that doesn't value the lives of these folks.

"Black men are being rounded up". Really? Police generally respond to crimes they either see occurring or that are reported to them. When there is a dead body, there is a dead body. Suspects are rounded up. How does Walker not understand this. Ahh because he wants to run to the drugs straw man. He, and by extension 60 minutes, wants the viewership to think that all these "rounded up" men are being rounded up because of drug possession. No sir. Most possession laws result in a fine. to graduate to a prison term one has far more drugs (and more potent drugs) than a simple splif.

But even Walker's math is wrong. While African-Americans may make up 13% of the population (which is what he was trying to say earlier) black men are about half that population. Hence you have 6% of the population that commits offenses far above what their population would suggest. If we return to the homicide chart above, we see that blacks and whites commit roughly the same numbers of homicides. However; once we realize that white males are 38% of the population and that black males are 6% of the population, you realize the the 6% population is committing waaaaaay more murders than they should be if all things were equal.

Lastly, since 60 minutes wanted to discuss interracial violence and terrorism, the following two graphs become very relevant:

You'll note that by percentage of victims, in the past decade whites have been victimized by blacks more often than the reverse. Now lets be completely fair here: We are not seeing blacks go to a park and set out a blanket with their kids to watch a white person get murdered and burned. However; murder is murder.

By the raw numbers more white people have been killed by blacks in the time space of 2001 to 2015 than all blacks known to have been lynched during the US lynch era.

So to close, I agree with Oprah and Walker that there needs to be an honest discussion of racial violence in America. However; I do not think that black people are willing to have that honest discussion because as the old saying goes, when you point a finger at me, three others are pointing back at you.

Memorial Day Weekend in Chicago

While the public was hollering about Harambe, those of us who were actually concerned about black lives read in disgust about the 60 shootings with 6 dead in Chicago. The NYTimes, which has lent it's pages to making the BLM movement legitimate by acting as if police were the biggest danger to black folks this side of the Slave Trade, has a report on that weekend:

From Friday evening to the end of Monday, 64 people will have been shot in this city of 2.7 million, six of them fatally. In a population made up of nearly equal numbers of whites, blacks and Hispanics, 52 of the shooting victims are black, 11 Hispanic and one white. Eight are women, the rest men. Some 12 people are shot in cars, 11 along city sidewalks, and at least four on home porches.

52 of 64 people (that's 81%) of the shooting victims were black. One (1) white person was shot (1.5%). This confirms the known statistical fact that blacks commit murders at 7-8 times that of the white population. Also according to liberals all groups of people should be equally represented (or at least in proportion to their population in a given geographic area) in all things. Yet it is clear that even though blacks and whites represent a roughly equal proportion of Chicago's population, they simply do not volunteer to do the same things when it comes to criminal activity.

And so the logic of one Chicago mother, who watches another mother weep over her dead son in their South Side neighborhood, is this: She is glad her own son is in jail, because the alternative is unbearable.

“He was bound to be shot this summer,” she says.

When members of a population come to believe that jail is safer than freedom you know you have a problem. I cannot even IMAGINE a scenario where I would think it better for a family member to be in jail rather than at home. Not only that but such a mentality undermines the claim that the police are more of a danger than other black people.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is also pushing for a quiet weekend. At a community event promoting nonviolence on the South Side, he greets men playing basketball, watches children draw, and compliments a mural underway, which reads: “Hearts Up. … Guns Down.”

A few hours later, the shooting starts.

Murals are not the solution.

The police have made no arrests in the case, and a motive is uncertain. Mr. Lindsey was arrested just a day before on a domestic battery charge. He was released on bond.

Neighbors say the shooting shows that the violence is trickling onto blocks that had long been considered safe.

To paraphrase Dr King: A threat to community safety anywhere is a threat to community safety everywhere. You cannot move to another place to be safe unless the habits and customs of that place are non-conducive and intolerant of criminal activity. If you live close to somewhere that has little respect for law and life and you too have little respect for law and life, then those who have little respect for law and life will come to where YOU live with the same results.

Three years ago, he and his wife consulted a Google map before moving here, trying to see if there were people hanging out on the corners. He’s happy with his choice – even though he estimates there have been gunshots on this block about 10 times. “You get some gunshots every day in some neighborhoods — every day,” Mr. Edwards says. “So I say 10 in three years, that ain’t too bad.”

First, had this been a report in which a white couple was looking at Google Maps to see if there were "people" hanging out, they would be called racist.

Second, when you are in a position where hearing or seeing 10 gunshots in three years is considered "ain't bad", then you have a very low set of expectations for your life.

The doors are open at the Universal Missionary Baptist Church in Austin, on the West Side, and a steady stream of people are dropping off rifles, revolvers, even replica guns — 61 weapons by the end of the day. Some are rusty. Some date to the 1920s. Most donors walk away with gift cards for $100, an incentive paid for by the city to get some firearms off the streets.

“That’s one gun gone,” says Cordelia Brooks, who turned in a weapon that had once belonged to her grandfather and had barely been touched in years.

First: As if new guns can't be purchased or obtained.
Second: How many of these guns have bodies on them in which the owner/killer is now immune from prosecution?
Third: If a gun hasn't been used in years, how was it a part of the problem? Did she expect it to up and walk out in the street and fire itself?

Police officials say most shootings involve a relatively small group of people with the worst ratings on the list. The police and social service workers have been going to some of their homes to warn that the authorities are watching them and offer job training and educational assistance as a way out of gangs.

Of the 64 people shot over the weekend, 50 of them, or 78 percent, are included on the department’s list. At least seven of the people shot over the weekend have been shot before.

For one man, only 23 years old, it is his third time being shot.

This is another known fact that must be kept in mind. The vast majority of black folks do not commit criminal acts. Nor are the vast majority of black folks victims of criminal acts. When you look at the data, there is a persistent and deadly underclass that is involved in these activities. Unfortunately instead of coming to the aide of the victims of these groups BLM would rather spend time defending the very people terrorizing the people trying to live an upright life in the "pool" with these wayward individuals. This is why I have no patience for or good words to say about BLM.

About a block away from the Lexington Street shooting, a fight breaks out. Now the anger is aimed at arriving police officers.

Distrust of the police flashes on the streets, again and again.

A lot of fucking nerve that.

Absolute morons. The people who MOST need to cooperate with police don't. Must like those 10 gunshots in 3 years.

So crimes go unsolved. In 2015, the authorities made arrests in just over a quarter of that year’s approximately 470 homicides. That only frustrates residents and fuels resentment.

Because police work is like it is on Law and Order. Everything is solved in under an hour. If it's not happening that way the police must not be doing their job.

She was cleaning ribs in the kitchen when she heard the gunfire and dropped to the floor. Now she smokes a cigarette and sinks her head into her hands.

“I hate the person that invented guns,” she says.

Meaning you hate white people...the ones who invented the thing and somehow by some kind of magic manage to not shoot 60 of their own over the weekend. But you know I understand why black people are fixated on the object. One of the problems with our indigenous (traditional) religions is that we had a habit of imbuing objects with spirit. Even today you can go to places where if you touch sacred objects (or taboo objects) people will freak out and go into a mental state. They literally fear the object itself. Now I understand that the object is merely a representation of some spirit or some concept and thus is disposable but it is a very large leap in thinking to get to that point. For too many black people "guns" are like those taboo objects of our past. It isn't helping that white liberals encourage such thinking.

“There’s always retaliation,” says one resident near where a 17-year-old was shot in the arm, insisting that her name and photograph not be published. “I don’t want them to come back and kill me.”

Retaliation drives a good share of Chicago’s violence, scarring bystanders and relatives and, in a notorious case last year, killing a 9-year-old boy whose father was in a gang.

Residents say it has gotten worse in recent years as gang structure has shifted. Some are vast and highly organized, while others span only a few blocks. New gang names pile on top of old ones, and they can change rapidly. So can their boundaries. And while once the violence associated with gangs was largely related to drug disputes, lately it is driven more by basic rivalries over turf and dominance, the police say.

And here we destroy the "poverty as prime mover" argument from the liberal war chest. This is about impulse control. These young men lacking guidance and impulse control terrorize their neighborhood. It's not drugs. It's not poverty. It is a way of [not] thinking.

Someday we'll all get serious about crime in black communities and we'll be the better for it.

BLM Representative Once Again Misrepresents Black on Black Crime

As is de rigueur for those in the BLM movement, yet another representative tried to deflect attention from the largest single threat to black lives: Other black people. First we have the black people hold no responsibility argument:

Black Lives Matter DC Core Organizer Aaron Goggans stated that “It’s not just a few white cops killing a few unarmed black men. It’s actually the state systematically creating up systems that are killing black people” and “it’s important to talk about the myth of black-on-black crime as just that, a myth” on Thursday’s “CNN Newsroom.”

You see, all that black crime, headed to levels not seen since the early 90's? That's all the white man's system that is making black people kill each other when they are not being killed by police. Black people are so dumb that they are unable to see this system for what it is and therefore are unable to beat said system. Black people are just too dumb to win.

Goggans said, “Well, it’s important to talk about the myth of black-on-black crime as just that, a myth. Any Google search of the term can come up a lot of different articles.

Including mine.

He added that while he wasn’t saying black-on-black crime isn’t a problem, “I’m saying that that intercommunity crime happens in all communities across the country, and it is a problem that the movement of Black Lives is focusing on.

Oh it's IS a problem? How big of a problem? Oh the same as "all communities"? Apparenlty Goggans didn't read my article because he'd realize that the issue isn't whether crime occurs in communities, it is the AMOUNT of crime, particularly murders that happens in black communities relative to these other communities. If black crime was in proportion to it's population this conversation wouldn't be had.

The movement of Black Lives is also focusing on state-sanctioned violence, which is a different thing. It’s not just a few white cops killing a few unarmed black men.

Actually the data shows that it is a "few" white cops killing a "few" unarmed black men.

It’s actually the state systematically creating up systems that are killing black people, both women, black children, black men, black queer, black trans, and black gender nonconfroming folks.”

Because black people have no agency and therefore no responsibility for their actions.

Goggans further stated, “There are many folks on the ground in Chicago who are doing great work. You can look at The Interrupters.

Outfits like The Interrupters have been around prior to BLM. Where were all these folks when people like The Interrupters were doing the hard work of directly confronting those who are committing the violence against black people?

It’s important that we talk about how the police are used in black communities.

Police go where the crime is. So if this joker spent his time with The Interrupters then he'd be directly addressing the presence of police. I know this is hard stuff to understand though.

It’s important that we talk about, like in Flint, for instance, you have both the state and federal government refusing to govern, and refusing actually take care of the black community there.”

Is this a good time to point out that the Flint City Council is practically all black? And the guy who made the decision that lead to the lead problem is black? No? Let me know when we can discuss the failure of the black city council to govern and "take care of the black community there". I suppose those city council members were duped by "the system" too.

Goggans also argued, “I think we need to fight all the forms of injustice that [the] black community face[s]. And I think you can’t use black on black crime, or this myth that somehow white people are not also killing white people to obfuscate from the fact that the state is killing black people in America.”

Again, the issue is not whether white people kill each other (they do). The issue is the rates of killing as a proportion of the population. And the state (meaning police, assuming he means that) actually kills more white people in America than it does blacks. But you'd have to do that thing called research to know this.

Naratives Even Stupidify The Allegedly Bright

One very hard lesson I learned over the past couple of years is that when one is invested in a narrative one becomes willingly blind to information that contradicts it. Even worse is that people who are of above average intelligence, will often fall into this trap. The overriding reasons being that since they know they are smart their narrative could not possibly be wrong. If anything those people who hold a differing view are the ones who are "not so bright". And of course there is the aversion to labels such as racist, sexist, uncle tom, sellout, etc, which can put a rather heavy wet blanket on one's social (and employment) life.

Universities are fast becoming places of indoctrination rather than places of critical thinking and the pursuit of facts. The students who graduate from these places are therefore ill equipped to deal critically with subjects to which they have been indoctrinated to think of in a certain way. Today's example comes from Stanford.

In an article about a Stanford grad who supports the Black Lives Matter movement we see the effects that this indoctrination has on bright motivated persons:

As Florida and the rest of world watched George Zimmerman walk away scot-free after a jury acquitted him of shooting and killing Trayvon Martin, a still-troubled nation questioned whether race played a role in the teenager’s death.

So far so good. Race (and gender) did in fact have a large role in the death of Trayvon.

But for Samuel Sinyangwe, it was clear. The Stanford University graduate, who was living in San Francisco during that summer of 2013, remembered growing up as a black child in Orlando’s College Park neighborhood.

I put this here because I want the reader to know that the person at the focus of the article is not simply your average person on the street. This is a person who has graduated from a top tier university in the United States. We should expect that such persons would have higher than average analytical skills than your average person. We're talking people with IQ's over 110, with many over 120. These are the very people who should be asking the tough questions.

And like Martin did on that fateful night of Feb. 26, 2012, Sinyangwe would stop by a 7-Eleven on his way home from school to pick up an Arizona sweet tea and a pack of Starburst or Skittles.

“I was not physically in Orlando, but it hit me very hard,” Sinyangwe, 25, says. “I was that kid. I could have been Trayvon. That’s why it hit me so personally and that’s why I realized that needed to be something that took the priority in terms of my focus.”

While the media made the Skittles and Arizona sweet tea a part of the story, it was not relevant to the story any further than Trayvon had one hand in his pocket to hold those items. As the record shows, Zimmerman was far more concerned with the hood on Trayvon's head and that he was walking around "looking at houses".

But what this part shows is that we are dealing with emotive narratives rather than facts. It would have made no difference had Martin simply been out for a walk or had just gotten off a bus. He was attacked and killed for who he was and where his "who" was.

Because he felt such a connection with Martin, Zimmerman’s acquittal also had a second effect on Sinyangwe – it radicalized him and refocused his work as a data scientist on issues of state violence and police violence.

Since Trayvon was not killed by police how did Sinyangwe come to this particular conclusion? While I certainly had major issues with the jury decision given the facts of the case, it was the state that failed to prove it's burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt. That is not state violence. It is very dangerous to declare outcomes we don't approve of as "violence". This is a particularly nasty habit of left leaning groups.

So when Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, was shot and killed by a white police officer and left on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, for four hours in 2014, Sinyangwe knew what he had to do.

You mean wait for the investigation to occur? To perhaps go there and interview witnesses? Get a hold of forensic evidence? Oh no. Sorry. I these would be the actions of high IQ persons who understands the value of impartial investigation. Had he done any of that, he would have discovered that the reason that Brown's body was laying out for so long was due to the crowds of people, some armed and letting of shots, that had surrounded the scene. The ME was actually on scene and unable to get to the body because police feared for their safety.

How is it that years after this information is known do we still have people and publications fronting a proven lie?

Also, we should note that Sinyangwe failed to identify with Brown's trip to the store. I wonder why that is.

As they were working to understand the issues surrounding Brown’s death and the deaths of other African-Americans at the hands of police officers, they discovered something puzzling. The federal government did not have a comprehensive national database of people killed by police. Even more troubling, what the federal government was reporting severely undercounted the number of people killed by police by a margin of 2 to 1, Sinyangwe says.

Did it occur to either one of these fellows to take a look at the FBI crime statistics?

In the two years since Brown's death, Sinyangwe and a group of activists created Campaign Zero, a platform that presents comprehensive policy solutions in the hopes of getting the number of people killed by officers to zero. Before any policy solutions, though, they had to know where they stood. Using data, they tried to find the elusive answer to the question: How many people have police killed and why? [my underlines]

Per underlined portion: In what fantasy world do these people live in where they think that in a country which has the highest murder rates of any industrialized countries (perhaps excepting Russia, I haven't checked) would not have even a single person killed by police? In what fantasy world do they live in where police are not shot at, stabbed, etc.? Do these people actually believe that a police officer should allow him or herself to be shot just so the perp can't be shot?

The FBI reported that law enforcement officers across the country had justifiably killed 426 people in 2012. In the same year, D. Brian Burghart discovered that wasn't true.

Using public records, online articles and crowdsourcing, Burghart found that in 2013, 1,271 people were killed during interactions with police. In 2014, that number increased to 1,295, and by 2015, it was 1,299. From 2008 to 2014, the average number of people killed by police was around 419 people per year, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports. Why the discrepancy?

Burghart says he found through his work that the data collected by the FBI was only coming from a fraction of police departments across the country. The Wall Street Journal says it found in a 2014 investigation that "among 105 of the largest police departments in the country, about 45 percent of killings by officers went unreported to the [FBI] between 2007 and 2012. Currently, reporting is optional and records from nearly every agency in three large states, Florida, New York and Illinois, aren't in the FBI's data."

This is important, but not for the reasons Burghart or the Orlando Weekly thinks. If the actual numbers of those killed by police is much higher than 412 or 426 then it means that the level of criminal activity is being underreported by the state. If anything the state is giving a false impression of safety. If data from places like NY and Illinois are missing, particularly with the huge spikes in shootings in Chicago that we've seen this year so far, one should wonder just how much criminal activity that involves firearms has really been going on.

The end result: Mapping Police Violence, a website that breaks down the data into visualizations any reader can understand. The group found that out of the 1,152 people killed by police officers in 2015, 336 of those people were black. African-Americans made up about 30 percent of the number of people killed, despite being 13.2 percent of the U.S. population.

Ahh the other sleight of hand used by those on the left:

Blacks are 13% of the population and therefore should be 13% of every and anything else, except basketball, football and Hip-Hop.

The crime statistics show however that black people commit certain offenses, particularly assaults (with and without firearms) at 7x the rate of the white population and way out of proportion of their US population. Furthermore since it is black males who are usually on the giving and receiving end of said violence we have to realize that it is really less than 6% of the US population that is responsible for huge numbers of homicides and shootings. This is not in dispute. It is known by the FBI and any and all law enforcement communities. But these facts do not make an appearance and those pushing these 13% arguments hope that the readers will not notice them. If the reader does notice these facts then the facts are deemed racist as is the person who points them out. The perfect circle of indoctrination.

The FDLE typically has a 98 to 99 percent participation rate among the state's law enforcement agencies. In 2015, FDLE reported 56 people had been justifiably killed by an officer, according to a supplemental homicide report. In the same WSJ investigation, the publication found Florida had not participated in the FBI's national tally since 1996. Orlando Police Chief John Mina says from 2010 to 2015, 11 people have been involved in fatal officer-involved shootings and three people have died while in OPD custody. All 14 are men, and out of those, 10 are black and four are white.

Say John Mina, what percentage of those committing crimes in Orlando are black and how many of them are white? Here's the City Data report on crime in Orlando. Here is a link to the demographic info where we find black people are 70% of the population which "coincidentally" reflects the "death by police" demographics.

Sinyangwe says he spoke with OPD officials about their use-of-force policy and recommended changes, specifically in regard to the policy that authorizes officers to hog-tie people, also known as the four-point restraint, and another policy that allows officers to shoot at moving vehicles.

Sinyangwe should have been hung up on, escorted out the building or never given an appointment in the first place.

Mapping Police Violence found the homicide rate for black people by police in Orlando was almost double the amount than for all races in 2014. New York and Florida have similar size populations, but three times as many people are killed by police in the Sunshine State than in New York.

Again with the relevant questions: What is the overall crime rate of black people in Orlando relative to other races? In particular what are the rates of crime by black suspects in which those suspects had weapons? Second question: Since we see that in places like NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, etc., as the temps rise the murder rates soar. If shootings are more likely to happen in 'warm/hot weather, which Florida has in spades, wouldn't that be a better predictor of levels of violence in Florida relative to NY?

"We pay our tax dollars to the police to protect and serve us," Sinyangwe says. "It's their job to do that. So they should take personal responsibility in upholding and performing their job with the level of quality that is in line with what the citizenry demands."

Actually courts have ruled that police are in fact not for our "service" or "protection".

Almost 121 years ago, journalist and advocate Ida B. Wells published The Red Record, a 100-page pamphlet that includes statistics on three years of American lynchings.

Awwww shit. They broke out with thy lynchings! New low.

From the end of the Civil War in the 19th century to the 1950s, thousands of African-Americans, mostly men, were lynched in Southern states, according to a recent report from the Equal Justice Initiative.

Not to minimize the very real terrorism that lynching represented, but we should realize that the number of black people who kill each other over dumb shit far exceeds the total number of persons lynched in the US. As an aside, I find it highly ironic that many of the people who would use this lynching argument have no problems with automatically believing a woman who claims she was raped or other claims of sexual assault. Many of those same persons will disregard jury findings of innocence. Talk about lynch mobs!

A Pew Research Center poll from last year said 59 percent of Americans now believe changes are needed to give African-Americans equal rights, up from the 46 percent of Americans who responded to a Pew poll in 2014.

Did this Pew poll follow up with a question as to what specific rights black people do not have that are enjoyed by the rest of the population?

Matthew Nichter, a historical sociologist who works as a professor at Rollins College, says Mapping Police Violence, the work of Ida B. Wells, and data collection by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's research department during the Civil Rights Movement all represent an effort to prove to critics that black people aren't exaggerating when they talk about institutional violence, and that the deaths of Brown, Sandra Bland and Eric Garner weren't just caused by officers who were "bad apples."

Lets get a few things out of the way:

Michael Brown robbed a store and assaulted the manager in the process. This he admitted to his friend. He then assaulted a police officer allegedly because he didn't care for the way he was spoken to. Eyewitnesses say that Brown rushed the officer when he was shot. How is that even a case of "bad apples"?

Sandra Bland should not have been stopped by the state trooper. The trooper clearly arrested Bland because he didn't care for her honest reply to his asinine question. However; Bland killed herself. Furthermore she killed herself after her family did NOTHING to help her get out of jail (all she asked for was $500). Bland and Bland alone is responsible for her death so how is that "bad apples"?

Eric Garner is the only listed case where we can discuss "bad apples". We can also discuss NYS cigarette tax enforcement and the ban on selling loosies as a way to "protect the children".

If you look at surveys of people, white versus black, white folks tend to perceive police as the guys who come get your cat out of a tree," he says. "I think that's why data is so critical. There's widespread obliviousness on the part of the white majority because we still live in such a segregated society. The experience we have in the suburbs is different than police presence in urban black areas."

Does Matthew Nichter have any idea why white folks in suburbs generally see police as those who "come get your cat out of a tree" rather than "Oh shit! Po-po!"? I'll give him a clue. In largely white communities there is very little violent crime. Police literally have nothing to do all day except drive around, hand out traffic tickets and look at porn on their phones. There are white communities where there haven't been murders in 40 years. When murders do happen in these communities it is often either a domestic dispute that went deadly or an outsider committing a home invasion.

By contrast is many black communities there are on the street murders happening every day. You're lucky if there is a 24 hour period where someone isn't shot. This doesn't include things like theft and "simple" assaults. Just shootings. Hence it is the very actions of the people inhabiting black communities that are the cause of the differences in perceptions of police.

And this is what I mean about narrative. All the people noted in the article had invested in a narrative. You have a lynching avenue where there is no lynching. There is the segregation as explanation that fails to hold up under the lightest scrutiny. There is wholesale dismissal of relevant facts in the case of Brown and Bland. There is the total non admission of the sky high murder rates that precipitate police involvement in black communities. In this fantasy world, where police shoot nobody, these facts and observations simply do not exist. Too many "bright" people buy into this and it is literally getting people killed.

Yes, Black On Black Crime is "A Thing"

A couple of days I ago I ran across this piece on a Black Lives Matter (sic) movement gathering in which the following was said by a Patrisse Cullors in which she made the claim:

Cullors also asserted, “Black-on-black crime is a myth.” She called comments on the phenomenon a “distraction” and “an unnecessary debate,” then encouraged the audience that when a conversation goes in that direction to “shut it down.”

I am still in shock that someone who claims to value black lives would be so cavalier about black on black crime, which most certainly exists. but go so far as to say that the phenomenon is a "distraction". I would agree that it is an "unneccessary debate" in that no one who is informed on the subject would be debating the topic. It exists and the only debate needed is how best to address it. And I'm following in the tradition of Amos Wilson, our ancestor who literally wrote the book on the subject. I know these black lives matter people don't read but I suggest that anyone reading this do themselves a favor and read the book. Now lets move on to the definitive post on black on black crime.

The Source Of The Confusion

Why is it that there are so many people who believe that "black on black crime" doesn't exist? It's because the term "black on black crime" is admittedly a poor choice of words to describe the actual situation and lends itself to confusion. Here's why: As anyone who studies crime statistics can tell you, in general violent crime happens between people of the same race. Generally. And because of this fact, most people jump to the easy conclusion that there is no difference in rates of black and white crimes. That conclusion is false.

The Real Deal

Why is this false? Well we have to keep a number of things in mind. Black people only make up 13 % of the US population. All things being equal you would expect that black crime (particularly violent crime) would be in proportion to the population. It is not. Not by a long shot.

Back in 2005 I wrote a piece in response to Bill Bennett's comments on aborting black babies in order to reduce crime:

White males are represented by 717 male inmates per 100,000 white males. In 1988 the white/black population ratio was 6.44. If we assume this number to still be accurate then our hypothetical white male population would be 128,800,000 people. Doing the math we did for the black population, we would get another 923,496 inmates. If we put these numbers together we get close to the total prison population of the US as of June 2005 (2,131,180). What immediately jumps out is that following Bennett’s logic, if we aborted every white baby, we would see the same drop in crime, since eliminating all white babies or all black babies would produce, mathematically, the same drop in inmates, and the crimes they committed. [note: My apologies to Lashawn Barber. She was right on this subject and I was wrong (and being emotional) ]

The important part is that blacks make up nearly 50% of the prison population yet are only 13% of the total US population. Whenever you have half of your crimes done by less than 15% of your population, you have a population with serious issues.

Furthermore when we look at the leading causes of death we see a similarly disturbing reality:

For black males, Homicide is the second leading cause of death for 10-14 year olds.

10 to 14 years of age.

Homicide is the number one cause of death of African-American males between the age of 15 -34.

15 to 34.

...

White males between the ages of 15 and 19 have homicide as the number 3 cause of death (compared to number one for black males)

White males between the ages of 20 -24 have homicide as the number 3 cause of death (compared to number one for black males).

White males between the ages of 25 and 34 have homicide as the number 5 cause of death (compared to number one for black males).

This data shows that unlike white folks, black males have a far higher chance of being killed. Don't take my word for it. Take the NYPD's word for it:

Murder and non-negligent manslaughter

Ummm does ANYTHING at ALL stand out to you?

Blacks are 62% of those arrested for murder and whites are 3%. Not only are blacks committing more crimes in NYC, but they are over an order of magnitude (times 2) more than whites. But there IS NO BLACK ON BLACK CRIME PROBLEM!

And since so many black women are into feminism...

Rape

Clearly the white frat boys are not the problem they are being made out to be. And notice this:

Though whites are 17% of rape victims they are only 5% of those arrested for rape. So exactly who is doing the other 12% of rapes on white people (mostly thought not exclusively women)?

More..

Felonious Assault

Translation: If you are assaulted it is MOST likely you will be black. It will also be likely that the person assaulting you is black. In both cases if that person is not "black" it's someone named Gonzalez, Ramirez, or some other "ez" or "es". Remember though, this isn't REALLY happening.

Grand Larceny

If you get robbed in NY. You're likely white. The perp is probably black or hispanic (and may be both at the same time. It happens). And lastly:

Shooting Incidents

Do you notice those huge long bars for Black? Victim, Suspect and Arrestee?

Lets look at this chart carefully. In NYC, 75% of the shooting crimes are committed by black persons. Seventy. Five. Percent.

Whites are 1.7% of the shooting victims. Yet are arrested 1.1% of the time. That means almost one half of white shooting deaths were caused by non whites. Blacks are 23% of the population of NYC. Males are about half that. so about 12% of the city's population is likely responsible for half the white shooting deaths.

I don't need to go on because the dataspeaks for itself. Black on Black crime is a real thing. We, those who actually care about black folks, have known this for a long time. Those persons who are claiming that this epidemic in our communities not only doesn't exist but isn't worth "debate" are either ignorant of the facts or have an ulterior motive. Because of the actions of these people, there have been more dead black people in places like Baltimore than at any time since the 1990s. These people most metaphorically have blood on their hands.

It's time for these white media organizations like Huffington Post, Atlantic, Salon, etc. to be held accountable for allowing their mediums to be used to spread outright lies about black people. It's time they stopped giving platforms to black folks who only know sound bites and catch phrases. It's time for universities to stop giving jobs and opportunities to folks who's ideologies and works have lead to actual deaths in black communities. It is time for black media outlets like TheRoot, Ebony, Essence, etc to be called to account for using their platforms to allow for falsehoods.