Racism seems to be a buzz word for much of the progressive left. Although many people use the word "racist" sparingly and with care, many others throw it around without considering the repercussions that it might have.
Any statistical variation between the races is now seen as a product of racism. It's beginning to get a little ridiculous at this point honestly, and I can't help but smile as I write this. If a research paper came out tomorrow revealing that white people sneeze more often, there would be protests in the streets the following day.
Why then, you may be wondering, are black people killed by police so often? There are 320 million people in this country, and 13.5 percent or roughly 40 million of them are black. In 2015, 50 unarmed black men were shot and killed compared to 50 white men (Washington Post figures, there is a lot of debate as to the actual number because of inadequate statistics). The shooting of an unarmed person can be justifiable, but that depends on the specific circumstances of the incident.
For example, the shooting of Michael Brown was justified as the postmortem evidence indicates he charged at Officer Wilson, even as Wilson had his gun drawn on him. The exact number of unarmed deaths which could be ruled as justifiable is still a matter of debate.
There is evidence to suggest that racist practices persist in many American Police departments (i.e. Ferguson, Baltimore), which is inexcusable and must be addressed as soon as possible, but this is tied into an extremely complex system of criminal justice and contemporary black culture. Of course, none of this justifies our heavily militarized American police who dress like Robo-cop and look like they're back from laying siege to Baghdad, but that's another matter entirely.
In 2015, there were about 14,000 homicides in this country. Over half of those victims, 7,039 of them, were black despite the fact that Black Americans only make up a minority of the population. When a homicide is committed against a black person, the suspect is black 90 percent of the time. Based on these statistics, black communities can be considered the most violent in the country.
This is, of course, the result of many years of systematic oppression which disenfranchised the black population. Even when those racist barriers were removed following the civil rights movement, many in the urban black community remained trapped in poverty and violence. This is not the result of active racism, as those laws and regulations were removed over a generation ago, rather it's an inability of our society to adequately enable low-income individuals to rise from poverty.
Black Lives Matter is based on a false narrative. They are correct when they say that unarmed black men are killed at a higher rate than unarmed white men (when adjusted for population), but this ignores the fact that almost half of all homicides in this country are committed by and against black people. This is the primary reason for the higher rate of interaction between police and Black Americans. In fact, almost every type of crime in this country is disproportionately committed by and against black people.
Black Lives Matter called for less police in black neighborhoods. If they succeed in their goal, they will be responsible for the increased rate of homicide in areas already plagued by rampant crime. Black neighborhoods don't need less police, they need more and they need it very quickly. This can only be accomplished if there is cooperation on both sides.
Black communities have to start talking to and interacting with police, something which is widely discouraged as "snitching". Black Lives Matter must die, otherwise schools will burn every time a black man is killed, regardless of whether it was justified. Police have to turn in their MRAP's, stop pointing their guns at random protesters, and generally stop being idiots.
The only way we can solve the problems that black communities face is to identify the actual problems and come up with comprehensive solutions. You can scream racist all you want, but it's not helping anyone and you aren't doing anything useful.
