Black People can't be racist

But seriously though, what is an acceptable number of people that could be killed by police in the line of duty? If there are almost 320 million people in this country, and there are always going to be a number of crimes committed every year, what is an acceptable number of people that are shot by police in self defense?

Obviously some of the police shootings were messed up. Obviously there's going to be some bad cops. There's over a million cops in the US across federal, state, and local agencies. One million cops to police 320 million people. What is an acceptable number of shootings in the line of duty for 1 million officers?

 

FactCheck: how many black Americans are killed by the police?


The analysis

There are a number of sources of official statistics on police killings in America. None of them is perfect, but all of them agree that black people are more likely to die at the hands of police officers than whites.

The US Bureau of Justice Statistics says there were 2,931 “arrest-related deaths” from 2003 to 2009. That includes car chases, shootouts and so on. The casualties are nearly always male, and men aged 25 to 34 are most likely to die.

Some 41.7 per cent of the casualties were white and 31.7 per cent were black.

Since black people only make up about 13 per cent of the US population, and nearly 63 per cent of Americans are white, blacks were disproportionately likely to be killed.



Divide the deaths by the average population and there were more than three black deaths at police hands per million people compared to about one in a million for whites.

The FBI also has some figures on this but it is very incomplete, with only a fraction of America’s 17,000 law enforcement agencies submitting data, so the numbers should probably be seen as the bare minimum.

We haven’t been furnished with the original data by the feds, so we’re relying on secondhand reports from the US media.

Vox.com says there were 426 “felons killed by police” in 2012, and 31 per cent of the victims were black – a disproportionately high percentage, and very similar to the Bureau of Justice figures.

The website ProPublica also looks at FBI figures but concentrates on young men aged 15 to 19 and finds that black people in this age group are 21 times more likely to be killed by the police.

When it was white officers who did the killing, the casualties were black nearly half (46 per cent) the time.

Finally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collect figures for deaths caused by “legal intervention”, which includes police killings but leaves out executions.

From 2010 to 2012, black people were two to three times more likely to be killed by legal intervention.

Does any of this mean that this “fact”, which has been very widely circulated on the internet, is true?

‘A black man is killed in the US every 28 hours by police’

Not exactly. The figure comes from this unofficial and unashamedly partisan report by a black nationalist organisation, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.

The data is a collection well-known cases usually reported by local media. The group claims 313 black people were killed in 2012 by “someone employed or protected by the US government”.

But not all the killers are police officers, or even government employees. They include shop workers, private security guards and members of the public.

In one case, a 13-year-old girl was shot dead by two school friends who found a gun in an off-duty policeman’s car.

You would have to look carefully at the circumstances of every killing before deciding that every one was an example of police racism.

How about this almost equally widely discussed stat which Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, produced in a heated post-Ferguson TV debate:

“Ninety-three per cent of blacks in America are killed by other blacks.”

His point was that black-on-black violence claims more lives than police killings, while attracting less publicity.

He’s right about the 93 per cent, which comes from Bureau of Justice Statistics research into homicides from 1980 to 2008.

What he failed to mention is that the vast majority of white victims were also killed by whites in the same period – 84 per cent.

There’s a simple explanation for this. Most murders involve the victim’s family and friends, who are more likely to be from the same race.

 

The claim

“It’s important to note that black men commit nearly half of all murders in this country, which is astounding when you take into consideration the fact that they only make up 12-13 per cent of the population.”“James”, 26 November 2014

The analysis

There were angry protests across America this week after a grand jury decided a white police officer should not stand trial for the killing of black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

FactCheck has already looked at the statistics on killings by law enforcement officials. Though imperfect, the official figures suggest blacks are disproportionately likely to die at the hands of police.

Several people have left comments pointing out that this is not necessarily surprising or unfair, since blacks are also disproportionately likely to be involved in violent crime in the US, thereby putting themselves in the firing line.

One reader, “James”, wrote: “It’s important to note that black men commit nearly half of all murders in this country, which is astounding when you take into consideration the fact that they only make up 12-13 per cent of the population.

“So, given this fact, does it make sense that black men are disproportionately involved in shootings with the police? Your graph is appropriately proportionate, when you take into consideration the role that the black population plays in, not just murder, but crime in general.”

“Sean” said: “If one group is more likely to be involved in that then they are more likely to be killed by the police – so they have nothing to complain about if that is the case.”

We thought we’d check these claims out.

The analysis

It’s true that around 13 per cent of Americans are black, according to the latest estimates from theUS Census Bureau.

And yes, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, black offenders committed 52 per cent of homicides recorded in the data between 1980 and 2008. Only 45 per cent of the offenders were white. Homicide is a broader category than “murder” but let’s not split hairs.



Blacks were disproportionately likely to commit homicide and to be the victims. In 2008 the offending rate for blacks was seven times higher than for whites and the victimisation rate was six times higher.

As we found yesterday, 93 per cent of black victims were killed by blacks and 84 per cent of white victims were killed by whites.

Alternative statistics from the FBI are more up to date but include many crimes where the killer’s race is not recorded. These numbers tell a similar story.

In 2013, the FBI has black criminals carrying out 38 per cent of murders, compared to 31.1 per cent for whites. The offender’s race was “unknown” in 29.1 per cent of cases.

What about violent crime more generally? FBI arrest rates are one way into this. Over the last three years of data – 2011 to 2013 – 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black.

Clearly, these figures are problematic. We’re talking about arrests not convictions, and high black arrest rates could be taken as evidence that the police are racist.



But academics have noted that the proportion of black suspects arrested by the police tends to match closely the proportion of offenders identified as black by victims in the National Crime Victimization Survey.

This doesn’t support the idea that the police are unfairly discriminating against the black population when they make arrests.

So why are black offenders – and young black men in particular – over-represented in America’s crime statistics?

Judging from online comments, there is a wide spectrum of views on this, from unapologetic racism to militant refusal to blame the problem on anything but historic white racism.

Some criminologists think we could be simply confusing race for poverty or inequality: black people tend to offend more because they tend to be more disadvantaged, living in poorer urban areas with less access to public services, and so on.

If you control for deprivation, people of different races ought to be similarly predisposed to commit crime. Or that’s the theory, at least.

There is a lot of research in this area, but a lot of it is contradictory.

This study of violent crime in deprived neighbourhoods in Cleveland, Ohio, found that reductions in poverty led to reductions in the crime rate in exactly the same way in predominantly black and white areas, suggesting poverty, not race, is the biggest factor.

Other studies get different results.

All sociologists have suffered from the same basic problem: finding urban white communities that are as disadvantaged as the poorest black neighbourhoods, so that you can get a fair comparison.

Some thinkers play down the importance of poverty in favour of the “violent subculture theory”.

This is the idea that some black communities, for some reason, have developed cultural values that are more tolerant of crime and violence.

Some commentators on the unrest in Ferguson – mostly right-wing, though not all white – seem to favour this idea, but naturally it remains highly controversial.

The verdict

There is evidence in the official police-recorded figures that black Americans are more likely to commit certain types of crime than people of other races.

While it would be naïve to suggest that there is no racism in the US criminal justice system, victim reports don’t support the idea that this is because of mass discrimination.

Higher poverty rates among various urban black communities might explain the difference in crime rates, although the evidence is mixed.

There are few simple answers and links between crime and race are likely to remain the subject of bitter argument.

 

Those articles might have been posted here before but I hadn't seen them and found them interesting.

 

3 per million.... Well those are clearly really good odds. I imagine you probably have a better chance of making it to the NBA.

 

Dviss is probably furious right now about this video.

 

I think I can hear him sighing from here.

 

At least he's consistent. He gives us the same dismissive "you don't REALLY know" argument when we bitch about referees. In his world, we don't understand racism and we don't understand refereeing basketball.

 

Louis CK is the best lol

 

I deleted one video that after viewing, I thought was in bad taste into the dialogue but still think humor is the best teaching tool available.

 

Very good post

 

If a certain brand of comedy makes you uncomfortable before you laugh, it's working. If everyone would just sit back and laugh with each other and about each other without getting butthurt things would be so less complicated.

 

I love Louis but I just gotta say I Bill Burr is my favorite comedian at the moment.

One of his bits on racism:

 

He's totally believable as a guy you know just ranting about some funny shit. I love Bill Burr. The way he trashed Seahawk fans is still my favorite though.

 

Have you listened to his podcast? I don't think he ever really writes his sets out, but his podcast is literally just him ranting about random shit and it's fucking hilarious.