There is an old truism that one cannot solve a problem unless one knows what the problem is. Another way of saying that is, one cannot solve a problem if one refuses to recognize what the problem is.
The Black Race currently has a problem in America but it is NOT the Police and it is NOT guns. The problem lays within the Black community and only they can resolve the problem, though everyone can certainly help.
Most folks immediately point to the hypothetical violence between Blacks and the Police. The singular data point stated is that Blacks make up 13% of the US population hence they should only make up 13% of the arrest, 13% of the incarcerations, etc., etc., etc. However, according to a USA Today reports Blacks are arrested at a rate 10 times that of non-Blacks and according to the NAACP Blacks are incarcerated at a rate 6 times that of white. Sounds like a compelling case for racial basis and discrimination. However, that is a very naive and a totally superficial way to look at the problem for it goes much deeper.
Consider this; according to multiple studies, 75% to 80% of all prisoners, independent of race, share three dominant characteristics. They all are poorly educated, come from poverty, and come from single head of household families. Unfortunately, Blacks lead in each category by a very large margin. Maybe a better approach to help the Black community would be to work with them to improve graduation rates, improve joblessness among Blacks which currently stands at a staggering ~19% (U6), and work with fathers to stay with their children to be positive role models.
Focusing on Police and guns will have absolutely zero effect on the arrest/incarceration rates for Blacks
There are larger problems in the Black community that need to be addressed by those that truly care about the well being of the Black community. One is the murder rate of Blacks on Blacks. According to FBI statistics for 2013 there were 3005 whites murdered and 2491 Blacks murdered. Of the 3005 whites murdered 2509 (or 83.5%) were perpetrated by other whites and 409 (or 13.6%) by Blacks. Conversely, of the 2491 Blacks murdered, 2245 (or 90.1%) were perpetrated by other Blacks while 149 (or 5.9%) by whites. A couple a facts should strike everyone:
- If 13% of the population is to be the measuring stick then Blacks should have committed only 397 murders in 2013 and not 2245
- 2491 is a staggering number of murders for Blacks, especially in light of 3005 murders for whites
Finally, let’s look at the hypothetical issue of Police shooting Blacks. According to one very recent study by Harvard Professor Roland G. Fryer NO racial bias could be found in Police shootings. According to a second study by Heather McDonald, Stanford Law, Yale, and Cambridge, and currently at the Manhattan Institute the Police killed nearly twice as many whites as Blacks in 2015 and a Policeman is 18 times more likely to be shot by a Black man than an unarmed Black man is to be shot by a Policeman.
The bottom line is that Black leaders, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Black Life Matters, etc. are absolutely the worse leaders for the Black community because they continue to blame Police and guns for the problems that plague the Black Community and refuse to accept and work on the real problems. If they truly had the welfare of the Black community at heart they would stop protesting the Police and fighting for gun control and work on the real problems.