Tuesday, June 9, 2020

RACE MYTHS

With all of the current hand-wring and mayhem caused by the murder of innocent George Floyd by white police officer, Derek Chauvin, and the cowardly non-intervention by the other three Minneapolis police officers, I believe it is time to weigh in on this tragic event. As clearly as this case is of “bad” cops vs. a black victim it is far from what truly goes on between the police and the black community at large. And the implication that white people in general are also somehow racially complicit in it is completely dishonest and absurd. N’est-ce pas? The new liberal talking point phrase is “Systemic Racism”. “Systemic” is defined in the dictionary as “related to a system, as opposed to a particular part. The left will misappropriate any word or phrase to advance their agenda and will coordinate the use of talking point words or phrases to expedite the process such as previously using the words “existential threat” and many more such phrases or words. Here are some facts as gathered by the Washington Post (hardly a conservative source) going back to 2015: Since 2015, of all the 1004 fatal police shootings, 802 were defined by race. Of these 371 were White suspects and 236 were Black and the vast majority were armed. Black suspects were more likely to have a weapon than Whites, yet more Whites were killed than Blacks. The number of Blacks murdered was 7407 in 2018. For every unarmed Black killed by police more than 700 were killed by someone else, usually by a person they knew. In 2019 the police shot and killed 10 unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed Whites. Of these 10 cases of unarmed Blacks being killed by police, 9 were males and one female. In five cases the suspect attacked the police and the police were not charged. In one of four other cases a Black police officer said his gun discharged accidentally and he was not charged. In another case a Black suspect claimed to have a gun, but did not, and vowed to kill the police officer. The officer was not charged. Years before the suspect was involved in a shootout with police. In one case in Fort Worth, TX a Black woman was shot and killed by a White police officer while she was in her house. The officer said he thought she had a gun pointed at him. Nevertheless he was charged with homicide. In a car chase a White police officer shot and killed a suspect because the officer said he had a gun. A gun was found in the suspect’s car, yet the officer was charged with aggravated manslaughter. In 2015, when Barack Obama was president, the number of unarmed Blacks killed by police were 38 and 32 unarmed Whites were killed. The totals have been dropping since then and they are falling far more dramatically for Blacks than for Whites. Last year, 2019, was the safest for both unarmed Black and White suspects. However, 48 police officers were slain by suspects in that year. This is more killed than were all unarmed suspects of all races. Police officers are 18 ½ times more likely to be killed by Black males than are unarmed Black males killed by the police. There are now increasing calls by what has encompassed more than just the loony left including the Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, to either completely defund the police or as the Mayor of Los Angles, Eric Garcetti, has said to greatly reduce the police department budget. Not surprisingly the New York Times approvingly reported that the New York City Council Speaker, Corey Johnson, and another council member, Danial Dromm, want to make deep cuts in the New York City police budget and “reimagine” public safety (Sung to the tune of the John Lennon song “Imagine”). Do these completely clueless people have any idea what would happen then? “That way madness lies; let me shun that. No more of that.” (King Lear, Act III, scene IV) One hears some race-baiting liberals saying that the killing of Blacks by police officers is genocide. The facts presented above, and others, prove that this ridiculous claim is not only bogus, but is clearly an abominable attempt to stir up racial hatred. I do not believe my language is too strong to describe these people as being evil. What else could possibly motivate them to sink to such depraved depths?