Misinformation and fear. What are the facts? What is real? What is hype and hysteria? Let's identify and find solutions together.
No matter what color, you are still my brother. Click to listen while you read. Timmy Thomas. Sade. Santana.
Race has no Place.
Calls of "Racism" and "Systemic Racism" stops the inquiry into what exactly the problems are and how we can fix them. These accusations divide America by race.
The Michigan State University study concludes that "...The race of the officer doesn’t matter when it comes to predicting whether black or white citizens are shot." See the Study page for more.
Click on colored links and pictures for source information in new Tab.
"This country is so race-conscious... I call it skin hangups - it's a disease...
We all understand what the y'all-and-us syndrome has been. See, I never as an individual accepted that, and I truly believe
that's why I am where I am today." Charlie Pride, first black Country Western music star hall of famer.
How much danger from police do we face in America today?
Washington Post’s database reports a total of 14 instances of police shooting and killing of an unarmed Black person in 2019.
FBI reports that 48 police officers (15% black) were killed in a criminal manner in 2019.
The media has us afraid of each other. Is the fear warranted? Are we being manipulated?
Don Lemon. CNN.
" 'Yes. Yes, officer.' Or whatever. I shouldn't have to be 'yes, sir'-ing anybody, right? ... But I do it because I want to stay alive.. I shouldn't have to I have to do that because I don't want to be shot, and I don't want to be killed.”
11 Year girl.
June 2020. In a fifth grade graduation speech, a young black girl shares her terror. She feels hated and is afraid of being killed."What did we do to make them hate us so much? We are stuck in 1920... still fighting for our lives. All I want to be when I grow up is 'Alive'."
Washington Post.
Professor Osagie K. Obasogie. "Police killing black people is a pandemic, too. [There is a] network of government-sponsored brutality across 18,000... law enforcement agencies can, in lockstep, without any central organization, create persistent terror in black communities."
Johnetta Elzie. Protester.
Johnetta describing her fear of the police when thinking of reporting her sexual abuse, “It was like, Do you call the police?... And if I call the police, are they going to kill him, or kill me, or kill us both?”
James. NBA Star.
“We are scared as Black people in America. Black men, Black women, Black kids, we are terrified. You have no idea how that cop left the house... Maybe he just left the house saying, ‘Today is going to be the end for one of these Black people'”
Christin Drake. Psychiatrist.
"My son is 4 years old... But my fear for his body, for his safety, for his sanity overwhelms me... I know that a police officer could use his body to crush [my] son to death... I hope he lives. "
Daria Allen. Protester.
As she turned 16... she was ready to get her driver’s license, but [News of George Floyd Breonna Taylor] brought on a constant loop of anxiety: What if she ... got stopped by the police? What if the police came to her home and shot her grandmother? What if she had children and then saw one die in a traffic stop?
Demarcus Lawrence.
Highest paid defensive end in the NFL. Tweeted May 2020: "DONE BEING QUIET AND DONE BEING ANGRY. HOW CAN WE FEEL SAFE WHEN THOSE MEANT TO PROTECT US ARE KILLIN’ US?!!!! WHEN WILL MINORITIES BE FREE TO BE AMERICANS IN AMERICA!?"
Joe Scarborough. MSNBC.
“To listen to protesters, editors and left wing talking heads go on and on since the shooting of Michael Brown, you would be led to believe that white police officers were randomly driving through black neighborhoods searching for young black males to shoot down.”
Real numbers
Do these numbers make YOU, an unarmed black person, feel terrified of the police?
1. Washington Post’s database reports 14 instances of police shooting and killing an unarmed Black person in 2019 (and 2020). Your odds of being killed? 1 in 3,428,000 (1)
2. Mapping Police Violence database cites 21 instances of police shooting and killing unarmed Black man in 2020. Your odds of being killed? 1 in 2,285,714 (1)
3. In the state of Virginia, which includes the historic capital of the Confederacy, in 2019 and 2020 there were 0 (zero) police killings of unarmed blacks. (Mapping Police Violence)
Or do these numbers make you, an unarmed black man, feel safer to see a policeman?
1. In Chicago, the number of shooting victims for July came in at 573, with at least 58 of them minors, according to Sun-Times records. So far this year Officers have seized more than 5,600 illegal guns and made 3,700 gun arrests.
2. In their lifetime black men are 14 times MORE LIKELY to be murdered by another black man (14.75 in 1,000) than by a policeman.*
3. Although blacks make up 13% of the population, black males accounted for about 52%... of male homicide victims (pg3 par3) in 2005.
Black Parents: There is nothing to fear from police. Your unarmed son has MUCH LESS than a 1 in 714,285 chance of being shot and killed when pulled over by police. How do we arrive at this? Police pull over more than 50,000 drivers on a typical day, more than 20 million motorists every year. Even assuming a high number - HALF of drivers - as unarmed black men, and police killed 14 unarmed blacks in 2019, and assuming that every one of them was driving a car (they were not), equates to 10 million / 14 = 1 in 714,000. About the same chance as being killed by a meteorite (about 1 in 700,000, according to astronomer Alan Harris).
Compare these odds - lifetime odds of dying:
Black killed in a confrontation with police - 1 in 1000.
Black murder rate - 1 in 68 *.
White murder rate - 1 in 287 *.
Opioid overdose - 1 in 98.
Traffic accident - 1 in 106.
Cancer - 1 in 7.
Gun assault - 1 in 298.
Pedestrian accident - 1 in 541.
Fall - 1 in 111.
Black men are 14 times MORE LIKELY to be murdered by another black man than by a policeman,* This is the problem that we need to address. This is the logical source of fear for the black man today and his parents.
Systemic police racism is not the problem. Even if we stopped all police killings of blacks,
justified or not, we would still have this terrible fact of black on black murder. How can we stop this killing? That's what we need to work on together.
But aren't some police killing of blacks unjustified? Yes, in a small number of cases, it does happen. But also to whites and other races. See Statistics and Police menus to put the numbers in context.
These two cases involve white persons you've probably never heard of. They are the white reflection of George Floyd and Bryona Taylor. But they don't serve the media's interest to divide and disturb - Tony Timpa didn't qualify as a 'White' police killing of an unarmed 'Black' man to show over and over again on prime time television. For more instances of police killings of whites - that don't make the national news - see the Police page.
Like George Floyd
Tony Timpa, a white man, pleads for help more than 30 times. Officers pin him down, tell jokes, for 13 minutes while he dies. Cause of death cardiac arrest due to stress associated with physical restraint.
Click on picture for full story.
Like Brenonna Taylor
Henry Magee heard people burst into his Texas home before 6 a.m. on a Thursday morning. He shot and killed the intruder. Now he's in jail.
The intruder he shot was Sgt. Sowders, an investigator Sheriff’s Department who was there serving a no knock search warrant for drugs.
There is only one group in America that truly cares about the lives of black people in the urban ghetto, and it's the american police officer who goes out there on a daily basis to protect who? Black people." Sheriff David Clarke debates Don Lemon on CNN.
Misinformation and fear. Hype and hysteria. Don't let it divide us.
(1) The population of blacks ( 48 million) divided by number of unarmed blacks killed by police.
* A black person has a 14.75 in 1,000 chance of murdered by another black person during their lifetimes. (1 in 68). 1997 Chances of lifetime murder
page 282. last two paragraphs.
** See Study and Statistics pages for the reason for the difference in numbers.