We have all recently heard many of our politicians claim that America is a ‘systemically racist country’ and that the police kill African-Americans at a much higher rate than they kill white Americans. There are a number of statistics that prove both of those claims false.
First of all, if America is systemically racist, why do we have many African-Americans in leadership positions? The United States Congress includes 57 African-American Representatives and 3 African-American Senators. The states include 7 Lieutenant Governors, 6 Attorneys General, and 3 Secretaries of State who are African-Americans. More than one-third of America’s top 100 cities is governed by an African-American. America elected an African-American President twice. We currently have a bi-racial Vice-President. Many of our military leaders have been African-American–Colin Powell, Allen West. Many African-Americans have served in cabinet-level posts in our government since 1966. Many of our major cities have diverse police forces with various races represented and in charge. If we are systemically racist, we are not doing a very good job of it.
But what about police targeting black people? Yesterday Trending Politics posted some very interesting graphs.
The graph above shows the perception (created by the media).
The article notes:
The bars are color-coded to reflect the estimation in each political ideology category. Very Liberal respondents were the furthest from reality: 14.29% said ‘about 10,000’ unarmed black males were killed by police, while 31.43% said ‘about 1,000.’ Liberals were slightly closer at 6.67% saying ‘about 10,000’ and 26.67% saying ‘about 1,000.’ According to the database at Mapping Police Violence, this number was actually 27.
The article also includes a chart of arrests sorted by race:
As you can see, the media is creating a false narrative.
The article concludes:
Amidst a rising “epidemic” of violent crime, the radical left wants to slash police funding. Many cities are already paying the price. Portland cut police funding and saw a startling 2,000% surge in murders. New York City, under Mayor de Blasio, reduced police funding and experienced a 127% increase in shootings. Minneapolis cut police funding by $8 million, while early 2021 crime data show a 250% spike in gunshot victims. In February, the Minneapolis city council backtracked and unanimously approved a $6.4 million boost in police funding.
“Initial data from the FBI and major cities across the U.S. suggests homicides increased by about 30% in 2020, and murder rates remained high into early 2021,” ABC reported. “Many cities that slashed police resources last year because of the protests, the pandemic, or both have poured money back into law enforcement to cope with a sudden surge of violence.”
There is no “epidemic” of police shooting unarmed black men in the United States. But there is an “epidemic” of ignorance and an unwillingness to check basic facts. This ignorance is leading Americans to adopt disastrous policies, such as ‘defunding the police.’
There is an element in our media and among some elected officials that would like to ‘reset’ our country into an image where they have more power and average people have no power. One way to do this is to disrupt totally the current paradigm. That is the reason the reporting and actual numbers are so out of sync. All Americans need to do their own research before believing anything they are told!