Lighted signs spell out “BLACK LIVES MATTER” at a rally for the Charleston Shooting held on June 19, 2015 in Madison, Wisconsin. Though some conservatives want to dismiss the movement, Black Lives Matter highlights genuine issues of systemic racism and inequality. (Flickr / Light Brigading)
Over the last few years the killing of unarmed African Americans including Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott and Freddie Gray by agents of the state have generated massive protests against a political system that almost never punishes police violence. Activist groups like Black Lives Matter have emerged as voices on the front lines from Ferguson to Baltimore.
Their message is simple: American society and the political system it has created do not value black lives the same as white lives. They draw powerful connections between the state-sanctioned use of force, a discriminatory criminal justice system, mass incarceration, and economic inequality for racial minorities. But their indictment of the system is predictably met with hostility by conservatives in denial that white supremacy exists, much less dominates American politics.
Right-wing authoritarians believe the real problem is liberals blowing a small number of sensationalist incidents out of proportion. They claim liberals take isolated cases of blacks being killed during police encounters and misconstrue them as discrimination, or argue that unemployed or incarcerated blacks created their own fate through their personal choices.
Most conservatives cling defensively to the notion that the system is fair, and people who claim otherwise are guilty of selection bias. They see authorities as noble and worthy of respect. Any evidence to the contrary can be written off as a few cases of bad apples.
In reality, there is overwhelming empirical evidence that white supremacy plays a dominant role in American society. Mark Twain had a point when he said, “there’s three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Taken individually, you could cherry-pick any piece of data to make a point. But when you analyze the picture holistically, the result is an unequivocal pattern.
Multiple indicators — police shootings, incarceration rates, public health indicators, wealth indeces and drug use rates — demonstrate that African Americans are disadvantaged in the United States. And not just disadvantaged narrowly. The numbers confirm what any reasonable person should be able to ascertain themselves through anecdotal evidence if they have a television and an Internet connection.
Numerous studies have found that blacks are killed by police at a highly disproportionate rate relative to their percentage of the population. A Vox analysis of FBI data from 2012 determined black people represented 31% of police shooting victims, while representing just 13% of the population as a whole. That is to say, African Americans were killed 2.5 times more frequently than they would be if police killings occurred equally across racial lines. Whites accounted for 52% of victims shot dead by police, while representing 63% of the entire population.
A ProPublica analysis found that statistics were even more stark for teenagers. Black teens were 21 times more likely to be killed than white teens from 2010-2012. The authors determined that more than 1 white teen would have to have been killed by police per week over that three-year period for both groups to have an equal likelihood.
A Guardian analysis of data accumulated for the first five months of 2015 was nearly identical to the Vox analysis. The Guardian found 29% of those killed by police were black, versus 50% who were white.
Additionally, the Guardian found that twice as many blacks as whites killed by the police were likely to be unarmed (32% to 15%). The paper quoted the executive director of human rights organization Amnesty International USA, Steven Hawkins, as calling the statistics “startling … the disparity speaks to something that needs to be examined, to get to the bottom of why you’re twice as likely to be shot if you’re an unarmed black male.”
As a whole, the United States incarcerates more of its population than anywhere else in the world. While the U.S. represents only 5% of the world’s population, it has 25% of the world’s prison population. There are more Americans in jail or under corrections supervision than were in Stalin’s gulags. But these numbers alone don’t convey the racial discrimination of the American prison state.
A Pew Research Center analysis reported that black men are six times more likely than white men to be imprisoned. The study demonstrates that the incarceration rate for blacks has worsened since before Civil Rights legislation was enacted in 1964. “In 1960, the white male incarceration rate was 262 per 100,000 white U.S. residents, and the black male rate was 1,313, meaning that black men were five times as likely as white men to be incarcerated,” according to the Pew analysis.
A prison guard on horseback watches inmates return from a farm work detail at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La. America has more prisoners than any other country, even China, and that prison population is disproportionately black.
There is no other country on the planet that locks up a racial minority group at remotely near the rate the United States does with African Americans. Even under the notorious racism of the apartheid regime in South Africa, blacks were not imprisoned nearly as much as in the United States.
The incarceration rate was nearly six times higher for black males in the United States than for black males in South Africa during apartheid (4,848 per 100,000 in 2001 vs. 851 per 100,000 in 1993), according to a study published by the Western Prison Project and the Prison Policy Initiative.
The driver behind what has popularly become known as mass incarceration is the hyper-criminalization of drug use, This was exposed by Michelle Alexander, in her landmark book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” as a vast system of social control and institutional discrimination which has evolved from the Jim Crow South to accomplish many of the same oppressive ends under the guise of legal justice.
Jamie Fellner, Senior Counsel with the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch, wrote in her report “Race, Drugs, and Law Enforcement in the United States” that the “costs and benefits of this national ‘war on drugs’ remain debated. What is not debatable, however, is that this ostensibly race-neutral effort has been waged primarily against black Americans” who are “disproportionately arrested, convicted, and incarcerated on drug charges” relative to their percentage of the population. Fellner called into question U.S. compliance with the International Covention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty which the U.S. has ratified.
While Americans hold wide prejudices that African Americans take and sell drugs more often than whites, the data have consistently shown this is simply not true. Studies demonstrate that blacks are less likely to use and abuse drugs than whites, and that they are less likely to deal drugs than whites.
Marijuana arrests account for a huge portion of the arrests carried out as part of the war on drugs that has led to the explosion in the prison population. When you isolate marijuana use by race, there are no statistically significant differences between whites and blacks. Both groups use them roughly at the same rate. The same is true among youths. But the rate of arrests is unmistakably unequal across the nation.
“Racial disparities in marijuana possession arrests are widespread and exist in every region in the country,” the ACLU wrote in their report “The War on Marijuana in Black and White.” They noted that in more than one-third of states, the rate of arrests of blacks was more than four times higher than that of whites for marijuana possession.
Life expectancy is one of the most important indicators of public health. The life expectancy of blacks (74.5 years) is more than four years less than that of whites (78.8 years), according to a Center for Disease Control and Prevention study published last year. This is actually a “historically record-low level” of difference in life expectancy, although it is still outrageously high for a developed nation with the wealth of the United States.
The numbers for wealth inequality are just as stark. The gap between median white net worth ($141,900) is 13 times greater than that of black net worth ($11,000), according to the Pew Research Center. They report that in the wake of the “Great Recession” that began in 2008 the difference has been exacerbated.
Every other significant economic indicator — income, home ownership, unemployment — confirms the enormous chasm between whites and blacks.
No amount of conservative denial can erase these facts. Of course, if you remove the context and look at individual stories in a vacuum you can distort the extent of the oppression. There are more than 40 million African Americans in the U.S. and so far this year there have been somewhere between 100 and 200 killings of blacks by police.
Naturally, not every black person is being killed. But the rate people are being killed is much too high compared to other ethnic groups inside the country and to other countries overall. This is not a problem the media has created, or that progressives have blown out of proportion. Any honest contextual analysis would have to acknowledge the inequality and discrimination that manifests itself in the actions of police, the courts, the economy and the health system. It points to one undeniable conclusion: blacks in the U.S. are oppressed. This is a direct result of deliberate policies formulated and carried out through the institutions of the state, not through the free market or personal choice.
The most important accomplishment of Black Lives Matter has been to make these issues visible to so many people across the country. Unfortunately, many who benefit from white supremacy are determined to keep it invisible. As the national conversation shifts to confront systemic racism and discrimination, conservative confirmation bias is difficult to overcome. But in the end the facts speak for themselves.
The more that activists create real social change, the stronger the conservative backlash will be at those who bear the message. Fortunately, these movements have shown every indication they are up for the challenge and are in the struggle for the long haul.
Originally published at Just the Facts Blog.
Content posted to MyMPN open blogs is the opinion of the author alone, and should not be attributed to MintPress News.
Where is the outrage over black-on-white crimes including the Knockout Game, Knoxville massacre, murder of police officers…
Murder in 2015. We have asked the SPLC and the #BlackLivesMatter
crowd to help us find white on black murders. You probably know about
the white perp that killed nine black victims in a spree shooting.
However, we can only find one other white on black murder occurring in
2015. For 2014, we have only been able to find four white on black
murders for the entire year. The SPLC, which hypes white on black
murder, did not report a single white on black murder for the entire
year of 2014.
Tally: 144
Hold-Up/Thrill Killing/Hate Crime: 47
Thrill Kill/Hate Crime Group Attack: 4
Home Invasion: 30
Killed while driving delivery truck: 1
Killed while driving a taxi: 1
Killed while delivering pizza: 3
Killed after online ad: 3
Thrill Kill + Rape: 1
Femicide: 21
Femicide Related: 4
Killed by adopted son: 1
Killed by a friend: 8
Killed working as police: 2
Killed while working at a store: 1
Killed while providing charity: 3
Killed by a girlfriend: 1
Killed by a government caregiver: 1
Felony vehicular manslaughter: 10
6/9/15 – Thomas Childs, 63, was shot and killed by a black male while driving a delivery truck in Yeadon, PA.
6/9/15 – Cole Edward Harvey, 29, was stabbed to death by a black co-worker in Conway, AR.
6/8/15 – Donna Niblock,
63, was killed by a black male who causes a vehicle crash while fleeing
from police in Indianapolis, IN. The perp also seriously injured
Niblock’s daughter and 11 year old grandson.
6/4/15 – Bennie Wesley Sigmon, 48, was shot and killed by multiple black males in his driveway in Danville, VA.
5/27/15 – Emily Nash, 28, was shot to death by a black male in her Springdale, AR home. She may have been dating the suspect.
5/11/15 – Erick Carnegie, 25, was shot and killed by two black males who invaded his home in Gresham, OR.
5/11/15 – Jonathan Cyril Collins, 39, was shot and killed by a black male in Las Vegas, NV. The perp also tried to shoot his girlfriend.
5/10/15 – Sarah Ann Champion,
47, was stabbed by a black male while living in a group home in Fort
Worth, TX. She was fataly injured and died of the wound about a month
later.
5/10/15 – Luciano Mariano Andia, 72, was shot and killed by a black male in Cary, NC. He was killed in the parking lot of a store.
5/10/15 – Christine Santurri, 42, was stabbed to death by a black male in East Providence, RI. The suspect is her boyfriend.
5/9/15 – Benjamin Deen
was shot and killed by three black males in Hattiesburg, MS. He was on
duty as a police officer at the time. The suspect also shot and a killed
a black male police officer.
5/9/15 – Marlene Murray,
64, was murdered by a black male in Atkinson County, GA. Police say the
perp was a friend, who wanted to steal her medication. The perp was
aided by his girlfriend, who is a white female.
5/7/15 – Shelly LaBine, 43, was stabbed to death by a black male in Green Cove Spring, FL. The suspect is her boyfriend.
5/5/15 – Pamela-Ann Knyazher, 19, was shot and killed by a black male outside a gas station in Richmond, VA.
5/5/15 – Taylor Clark, 19, was killed by a black male in St. Louis, MO. The victim was lured to his death over craigslist.
5/5/15 – Lacie LaRose, 19, was shot and killed by a black male in College Station, TX. It was a hate crime/thrill kill. Two other males were injured.
5/4/15 – Brian Moore, 25, was shot and killed by a black male in NYC. He was working as a police officer at the time.
5/3/15 – Nicholas Norris, 41, was riding his motorcycle in Indianapolis, IN when a black male shot him. It was a random hate crime/thrill killing.
5/2/15 – Scott Hunter was killed by a black male and Kuwaiti immigrant in Louisville, KY. He was a Canadian tourist in town for the Kentucky Derby.
5/1/15 – Brandon Morris, 19, was shot and killed by a black male in Tacoma, WA. It was a random hate crime/thrill killing.
4/27/15 – Ana Charle, 36, was murdered by a black male while working at a homeless shelter in New York City, NY.
4/24/15 – David Fuller, 26, was shot and killed by a black male while delivering pizzas in Flint, MI.
4/22/15 – A father and son were killed execution style when two black males invaded their home in Metairie, LA.
David Pence, 56
Nicholas Pence, 26
4/20/15 –Aiden Louis Bard, 8, died from being burned in a scalding hot bath by his black DCFS caregiver in Deerfield, IL.
4/17/15 – Cassandra Cassidy, 24, was shot and killed by multiple black males in a car in Las Vegas, NV.
4/17/15 – Samantha J. Fleming, 23, was stabbed to death in her home by a black female in Gary, IN. Police say the perp pretended to be a government worker.
4/15/15 – Floyd Valachovic, elderly, was beaten to death by a black male in St. Stephens, SC.
4/13/15 – Deanna Stewart, 38, was beaten to death by a black male in El Paso, TX. The suspect is her husband.
4/12/15 – Wanda Dethlefsen,
33, was stabbed to death by a black male in La Grange, NC. The twenty
year old suspect was trying to pursue a relationship with the victim’s
13 year old daughter.
4/11/15 – Nils Johnson, 39, was beaten to death by a black male in Oak Park Heights, MN.
4/11/15 – Marcia Dye,
53, was murdered in her home by a black male in Heber Springs, AR. The
19 year old suspect is described as the adopted son of the victim.
4/11/15 – Aaron Jerome Davis
was killed when a black male hit him with his car in St. Petersburg,
Florida. The suspect was drunk and fleeing from police. Another victim
was injured.
4/10/15 – Matthew John Smith,
31, was killed when a black male wrecked his car into him in Lakeland,
FL. The suspect was fleeing from police in a stolen car after committing
a series of other crimes.
4/7/15 – Eva Hodisan, 76, was stabbed to death by a black male who invaded her home in Cleveland, Ohio.
4/3/15 – Two white victims were shot and killed by a black male in Petersburg, VA.
Kimberly Eledge, 35
William Thurston III, 39
4/2/15 – Cheri Amber Houston, 28, was killed by a black male in Lake County, FL.
4/1/15 – Brian Anthony Kappauf, 43, was shot and killed by a black male in Charlotte, NC.
4/1/15 – Thomas Brock,30, was shot and killed in Pasadena, Texas by two black males. They were angry at the way he was driving.
3/27 – A black male killed two people in St. Louis. The suspect was the boyfriend of one of the victims.
Paige Schaefer, 23
James Lacey, 47
3/26/15 – Destiny Asher, 23, was shot and killed by a black male who wanted to rob her and her friends in Indianapolis, IN
3/24/15 – Michael Price, 36, was shot and killed by a black male while delivering pizzas in New Orleams
3/24/15 – Kelly L. Hepfl, 39, was shot and killed by a black male in Philadelphia, PA. The suspect is her boyfriend.
3/19/15 – Julia Anderson, 23, was stabbed to death in a parking lot in New Orleans, La by a black male. The suspect is her boyfriend.
3/19/15 – James Stuhlman, 51, was shot and killed by a group of black males aged 14-15 in Philadelphia, PA.
3/19/15 – Anna Marie Ferriman, 62, was killed by a black male during a home invasion in Columbus, Ohio. The perp also burned down her house.
3/18/15 – An unborn baby
was killed by a black female when the mother responded to a craigslist
ad in Longmont, CO. The seven month old baby was cut out of her mother’s
womb and later died.
3/16/15 – Kimberly Ann Chittenden, 46, was murdered by a black male in Citrus Heights, CA.
3/16/15 – Karter Alderman, 17, was shot and killed when a black male invaded his home in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
3/15/15 – Sharon L. Moody, 52, was murdered in her home by a black male in Junction City, KS. Suspect is described as an acquaintance.
3/15/15 – Amanda Collins, 33, was found dead in her truck near Shreveport, LA. A black male described as an acquaintance has been arrested.
3/14/15 – Three black males murder two outside of a bar in Atlanta, GA.
Joseph Hruska, 33
Chaitanyalila D. Kelsey, 32
3/14/15 – Pamela-Ann Kynazher, 19, was shot and killed by two black males at a gas station in Richmond, VA.
3/13/15 – Donnie Kennedy, 31, was beaten and stabbed to death by a black male in Clarksville, TN.
3/13/15 – Steve Dillard, 55, was murdered by a black male while running a foster home for troubled youth in Louisville, KY.
3/12/15 – Josh Richey, 38, was shot and killed by black males in a Kroger parking lot in Atlanta, GA.
3/11/15 – George Hite, 65, was strangled by to death by a black male who invaded his condo in Trenton, MI.
3/11/15 – Matthew Hagerty, 24, was murdered by three black males in Brevard County, FL. The suspects are aged 15-19.
3/10/15 – Casey Lindley, 27, was shot and killed by a black male in Ogden, KS.
3/7/15 – Dawn Davis Kirkland,
51, was killed while riding her motorcycle in Lexington, SC. The perp
is a black male who was driving drunk and drinking from an open
container while he was driving. Other victims were also injured.
3/5/15 – Christopher Guilbeau,
24, was found dead in Texarkana, AR alley. Two black males and
unidentified female minor arrested after being caught driving around in
his car.
3/5/15 – Yarra Wilson, 42, was murdered by her black husband in Lancaster, PA.
3/4/15 – Thomas David Oakland, 75, was killed by a black male who invaded his Gainsville, FL home.
3/1/15 – Eva Todd Carmichael, 94, was shot to death when four black males invaded her home in Meridian, MS.
2/27/15 – A mother and son were killed execution style when four black male invaded their Americus, GA home.
Bonnie Freeman, 54
Dallas Freeman, 33
2/27/15 – Dennis Wayne Williams, 57, was shot and killed by four black males during a home invasion in High Point, NC.
2/24/15 – Dan Long Belvin, 95, was killed in a home invasion by a black male in Montgomery County, MD.
2/22/15 – Alexander William Burkart, 22, was stabbed to death by two black males while delivering pizzas in Mt. Clemens, MI.
2//22/15 – A black male killed a couple during a home invasion
in Elkton, Maryland. The perps white female girlfriend was also arrested
as an accomplice.
Earl Herbert Loomis, 79
Mary Ann Loomis, 76
2/18/15 – Mandi Kaiser was murdered by a black male in Savannah, GA. The suspect is her fiance.
2/17/15 – Jason Stovall, 33, was shot and killed by a black male in Malvern, AR. A white female victim was also shot and seriously injured.
2/12/15 – Michelle Dukes, 34, was shot and had her throat slit by a black male. The suspect is her husband.
2/12/15 – Monique Rakowski,
29, was murder by a black male in Eastpointe, MI. He black boyfriend
has been charged. He also killed a baby they had together.
2/11/15 – Frank Steinsiek, 56, was murdered by a black male when he placed an ad for a motorcycle on the internet in Little Rock, AR.
2/10/15 – David Messerschmitt, 30, was stabbed to death by two black females in Washington, DC. He was lured to his death over craigslist.
2/7/15 – Steven Arnold, 57, was killed by a black male who invaded his home in Reno, NV.
2/7/15 – Larry Tuttle was shot and killed by his black girlfriend in Lake Highlands, TX.
2/7/15 – Rob Browning, 68, was killed by a black female who invaded his home in Beckley, WV.
2/5/15 – Ashley Bain, 28, was beaten and stabbed to death by her black boyfriend in Smithville, NE.
2/1/15 – Carol Sue Cunningham, 40, was beaten to death by a black male in St. Joseph, MO. The suspect is the victim’s boyfriend.
1/31/15 – Amy Murphy,
20, was killed and her body set on fire in Clarksville, TN. Two black
males and a Latino female have been charged with murder. A black female
and a white male were charged as accessories. The victim had three small
children.
1/27/15 – Dylan Peters, 17, was shot by two black males who fire gunshots through the front door of his home in York County, VA.
1/25/15 – Trisha Dawn Stull, 30, was shot and killed by two black males while she worked as a clerk in a convenience store in Horry County, SC.
1/24/15 – Vann Yates, 57, was shot and killed by two black males while working in his yard in Guilford County, NC.
1//22/15 – Winston Duane Smith, 73, was beaten to death by a black male whom he had allowed to stay at his house in Pensacola, FL.
1/21/15 – Norma Jean Freeman, 81, was beaten to death by a black male that invader her home in Madison Heights, VA. Her son was also seriously injured.
1/21/15 – Albert Joseph Jamison, 60, was beaten to death by a black male in Conway, SC. The victim was homeless.
1/20/15 – William “Billy” Doyle, 24, was shot and killed in McKeesport, PA by two black males. Two women were also shot and injured.
1/20/15 – Gerald Hall, 70, was killed in a motel room by a black male in Tulsa, OK.
1/19/15 – Brian Davis, 63, was murdered by his black roomate in Durham, NC.
1/18/15 – James Ryan Burch, 31, was shot and killed by a black male in Harwood, VA.
1/17/15 – Misty Mashburn, 30, was killed when multiple black males invaded her home in Baird, TX.
1/15/15 – Scott Knopfel, 50, was shot and killed while working as a clerk in a hotel in St. Louis, MO.
1/15/15 – Four black males killed a mother and daughter in a home invasion in Haines City, FL.
Patricia Moran, 72
Deborah Royal, 52
1/13/15 – Tina Bond, 44, was strangled to death by a black male in Cincinnati, OH. The suspect is said to be a close friend.
1/13/15 – Nicholas Grant, 16, was beaten to death by two black teenagers inside a group home in Carrick, PA. The suspects are 15 and 16.
1/11/15- Kody Zawalski, 20, was killed by two black males who invaded his home in Lakeland, FL. Three other people were injured.
1/11/14 – Bobby Christman, 19, was shot and killed by three black males in downtown St. Louis, MO. One of the perps also opened fire on police officers.
1/10/15 – Stephanie Waters, 21, was killed execution style by two black males in Blair County, PA. The suspects are 15 and 16. They also killed her dog.
1/9/15 – A black male killed two step-siblings at an apartment in Kingsport, TN.
Dylan W. Ferguson, 18
Amber CheRee Purifoy, 23
1/8/10 – A black male shot and killed a white couple in Charlotte, NC.
Donald Ray Matthews, 52
Jeanila Adams, 44
1/7/15 – Carolyn Temple, 69, was shot by two black males in Belhaven, MS. She died a few days later.
1/7/15 – Khrista Ibarolle was shot and killed by a black male in a parking lot in El Dorado Hills, CA. A second female victim was also attacked.
1/7/15 – Gale Haltom, 58, was killed by a black homeless man that he was trying to provide assistance to in Indianapolis, IN.
1/5/15 – A black male shot three neighbors at his apartment complex in South Bend, IN. Two of the victims died.
Robert Duke, 46
Michelle Blankenship, 43
1/5/15 – Jerome P. Harte, 60, was murdered by a group of black men and women in Fort Lauderdale, FL
1/5/15 – Dean Barker, 59, was murder by two black males while driving a taxi cab in Merced, CA.
1/4/15 – Kathy Shines,
54, was raped and murdered and thrown into a dumpster behind a bar is
Las Vegas, NV. The suspect is a black male with a vast criminal record.
1/3/15 – Jon Bieker,
44, was shot and killed by three black males inside a gun store he
owned in Shawnee, KS. His wife was also shot and wounded. All three
perpetrators were shot, but survived.
1/2/15 – Lee Rappuhn, 36, was shot and killed by a black male while driving his car in Flint, MI.
WHITE LIVES MATTER