By the Numbers

In 2018 990 people were killed by police in the US. 454 were White and 228 were Black.

There were also 6,570 single victim/single offender homicides in 2018. 3,315 victims were White and 2,925 were Black. Of the 3,315 White victims, 2,677 were killed by other Whites and 514 were killed by Blacks. Of the 2,925 Black victims, 234 were killed by Whites and 2,600 by Blacks.

So, by far, the greatest danger to Blacks are other Blacks followed by just plain White folks. The police come in third. A Black is five times more likely to be killed by another Black than by the police and just plain White folks combined.

This doesn't excuse police brutality, police racism or police acting like fascist goons, but we need to keep things in perspective.

Notice that twice as many White people were killed by Blacks than Blacks were killed by police. So, if Black people are afraid of cops, why shouldn't White people be afraid of Blacks?

At the root of all our problems is crime and the crime rate has come down dramatically in the last 20 years or so. But memories are sometimes long and a lot of people remember when crime was a bigger problem and many probably believe it is still as big a problem.

If we don't talk about this we're never getting anywhere.