I don't post very much but SemDem's diary has me seething. The only way Republicans can win in the future is if they make significant inroads among the white working and middle class in states like Wisconsin/Michigan/Ohio etc. The quickest route to losing white voters is to pretend that white fear of black violence is misplaced or misguided and nothing more than a figment of racist imagination.
While I don't dispute the statistics that most murder is intraracial, it really doesn't matter because people don't fear just any kind of violence. They fear the kind of violence that makes the news; carjackings, home invasions, convenience store hold-ups, robbery, etc.
Rather than deny the problem, it would be much more constructive to look to the root causes of it. We should point out that in traditional hunter-gather societies in Africa like the Hadza, murder is practically non-existent. Therefore, there is nothing genetic about black violence. Instead, it is a consequence of the brutal legacy of slavery and really bad governmental policy that has fallen disproportionately on African Americans.
Does the writer to the Orlando Sentinel have good reason to "find many black youth threatening?" I believe he does. But you will not solve the problem by more stand your ground laws or tougher sentencing guidelines. The solutions lie in better education and good jobs at good wages for all. In short, we need to elect more Democrats.