This week Joe Klein stepped in a big giant turd pie when he attempted to address race relations in what he claimed was a "thoughtful, provocative way."
It's something Melissa Harris-Perry has already addressed.
Melissa v Joe by ewillies
But we should go further, because there is much more that's wrong with Klein's column and the ideas behind it. He stated.
But we have developed new historic truths over the past 50 years. A great many bodega owners won’t see Michael Brown as a metaphor for anything. They see potentially threatening customers every day. Blacks represent 13% of the population but commit 50% of the murders; 90% of black victims are murdered by other blacks. The facts suggest that history is not enough to explain this social disaster.
"90% Of Blacks are Murdered by Other Blacks." Actually, Joe it's really 92% if you go by what your obvious source for this number could possibly be, which is this chart from the
FBI Uniform Crime Report.
If you go by this chart it appears that the total number of Black Victims [2,648] are mostly killed by Black Offenders [2,412]
which is 92%.
However, as Melissa points out in her response to Klein it also says that [3,128] White Victims are mostly killed by White [2,612] Offenders which is 82.4%. So - if you go by this table - if there's a "Black on Black" crime problem, the "White on White" Crime problem is almost exactly as bad.
Except for one minor detail that appears in fine print just above the table.
Single Victim/Single Offender.
The data on this chart wouldn't include the vicious killing of African-American James Byrd by dragging him behind a car until his head popped off by two White Supremacist - because that involved more than a single offender. It wouldn't include the Skinhead G.I. from Ft Bragg who killed a African-American Couple to prove his Racist "Bona Fides" because that involved more than a single victim.
So what exactly, is the truth? Is there anyway for us to tell?
People who constantly argue that we need to "Wait for all the Facts" and shouldn't "Rush to Judgement" really don't seem to be willing to wait to find out if their presumption, like Klein's, and apparently Officer Wilson's, that just about any black man, is a dangerous black man.
People like Sean Hannity.
“So you’re the judge, jury and executioner?” Hannity asks. “How do you know in this case that there’s police brutality? If we don’t have the facts, how do you know?”
Brand then interjects that Bynes “is sort of smiling now, like she’s looking after this little boy, and trying to make him eat his vegetables, but he wouldn’t have them — he wanted the ice cream. So I said, ‘Vegetables first,’ but eventually, you just give him the ice cream.”
When Bynes tries to explain that there have been many instances of police brutality, Hannity shouts her down by repeatedly asking, “But how do you know in this case?”
At which point, Brand impersonates Hannity, saying “This case! This case! It’s not a part of a massive national trend!”
"What if he charged"? Hannity argues - even though none of the various witnesses have said that Michael Brown "charged". "How do you know you weren't there?" and you've merely been listening to the 5 witnesses who all agree with each other on what Michael Brown did from the beginning of the confrontation to the end of it?
Or other Fox Hosts who feel that Michael Brown's body and arms were obviously his "arms".
Linda Chavez, who was nominated to head up the U.S. Department of Labor by President George W. Bush but withdrew when it was discovered she employed an undocumented immigrant as a maid, wrote a column last week for the New York Post stating, “Publicly available videos and still photos of Brown and Wilson show significant size differences between the two men, with Brown looking to have a height advantage over Wilson and outweighing the officer by about 100 pounds.”
...
“I think the media has not acted responsibly,” she explained. “I think that what is happening is really not calming racial fears but is actually enhancing them by acting as if, you know, this mantra of the unarmed black teenager shot by a white cop. You know, that description in and of itself actually colors the way in which we look at this story. We’re talking about an 18-year-old man who is six foot four and weighs almost three hundred pounds, who is videotaped just moments before the confrontation with a police officer strong arming an employee and robbing a convenience store.”
Because as you know, Black Guys are more prone to be
Killers, therefore Police must treat them accordingly and not hesitate to
kill them first. Even if their hands are up, or their collapsing to the ground after being shot already as witness Michael Baker described, never mind the fact that Wilson had on body armor, and had a taser, and had mace, and had a gun - the one with the
obvious advantage - was Brown because he was bigger (and not to put words in Chavez's mouth "also blacker").
Or even if it turns out there was no "Strong-Arm Robbery" of Cigarillos.
“While it is difficult to be 100 percent certain, the video appears to show Brown purchasing some cigars but lacking the money for the amount he wished to buy. Brown seems to purchase some cigarillos, pay for them, attempt to buy more, then replace the ones he could not afford.”
“The confrontation between Brown and the clerk may have been because Brown impatiently reached across the counter. Perhaps it was wrong for Brown to shove the employee – it is impossible to know what words were exchanged – but this footage seems to exonerate him. It is important to note that Brown only shoved the clerk after he put his hands on him.”
But then that explains why no one from the Market called the cops, a
customer who thought he'd seen a Robbery, when one hadn't happened, made the call.
This is what happens when you let "All the facts" be known.
And if we should wait until "All the facts" are known about this case - shouldn't we wait untl "All the Facts" are known about just how likely - or unlikely - Black people are to commit Crime Vs White People?
Generally this has been determined based on the FBI Murder stat that I quoted earlier, but then again that number is incomplete. Is it possible to find more complete data?
I've long thought there wasn't but after the explosive report by John Roman which asserts that during citizen vs citizen cases the likelihood that of the White person who killed a Black person being considered "Justified" is 225% greater than the reverse, and even moreso in states with "Stand Your Ground" laws in place.
Looking just at the totals column is appears that while only 2.21% of White on White cases of Murder are considered justified and also that 2.43% of Black on Black cases are considered Justified - which are fairly close relatively.
It's when you deal with the cross-racial data that things get strange. Only 1.21%, which is only half of either the White/White or Black/Black killings, are considered justified when the case is a Black person being accused of Killing someone White.
But the last number is just insane. 11.41% of cases with a White Killer are Considered Justified when the Victim is Black.
That's amazing. That many poor innocent White people are being forced by circumstances to resort to the ultimate in "self-defense" against Black people, but that situation doesn't show up anywhere else? Not even in Black on Black killings?
[It should be noted that like the well used FBI Murder/Race report, Roman also only looked at single offender/single victim cases in order the best emulate situations like those encountered by Trayvon Martin. He also did not include any Law Enforcement Killings in his analysis.]
Could it be that in many of these cases, the argument that "Black People are Dangerous" automatically acts as The justification for whatever happens after as it did for Jonathan Ferrell and Renisha McBride as they knocked on the doors of nearby homes looking for help after getting into car accidents?
They looked "Dangerous" [code word for "Black"]. They were "Trying to Break In" [Code for "Knocking on the Front Door, and asking for Help"]. This got them shot ten times after claims that Ferrell "charged" the police, and shotgunned in the face in "self defense", respectively. In these cases those "justifications" failed and charges were filed, but how often does it succeed when there really is no real "justification" at all?
I don't think we know. I don't think at this point we can know. Particularly when the total number of unjustified police homicides and excessive uses of deadly force are not documented. Anywhere. Even though the law has required it to be documented for about 20 years.
Lawmakers recognized the need for reliable information in 1994, when they passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. As part of the 354-page package, Congress ordered that "the attorney general shall, through appropriate means, acquire data about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers."
The 1994 law further directed the Justice Department to "publish an annual summary of the data acquired" concerning excessive force. The provision was inserted by senators, records show. At the time, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee was Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, now the vice president of the United States.
The excessive force report requirement was one of a number of report obligations imposed on the Justice Department under the 1994 law. It left some key questions unanswered, including the definition of excessive force, even as it forced shorthanded researchers to manage with limited resources.
"The incidence of wrongful use of force by police is unknown. Research is critically needed," the Bureau of Justice Statistics acknowledged in 1999, adding that "current indicators of excessive force, such as civilian complaints and civil lawsuits, are all critically flawed."
Those who say we should "wait for the facts" on the excessive use of deadly force by law enforcement would essentially have us continually waiting forever, because even despite a law requiring this information be provided - it still hasn't been.
But that's not the only question on the table. Are Black people literally causing their own deaths by being "more violent" or more murderous? Do we even really have a clear picture of who has killed who at all?
We generally do know who the victims are, unless their remains have become so decayed they can not be identified, but we don't always know who did it.
Do we know the perpetrator in 90% of Murder cases? Nope.
Do we know the perpetrator in 80% of Murder cases? Nope.
Do we know the perpetrator in 70% of Murder cases? Nope.
In fact the FBI documented FBI Clearance/Arrest Rate for Murder is only 62%. Here's their chart.
Even in the cases with the highest clearance rate, Murder, we still don't know who actually did it, in at least 38% of the recorded cases. But what do we know?
Looking at Roman's results I figured there was more information behind that one FBI chart and decided I would look to see what John Roman used as his source.
What I've first found was the Supplemental Homicide Report which includes all homicides even when there are multiple victims and multiple offenders. How does that breakout when we take a more detailed look at Murder when it isn't limited to Single Victims an Single Offenders?
Like this, for White Victims.
As you can see there are more than just 3,128 White Victims of Murder Each year as the Chart Klein used would state. A lot more. Over 1,000 more. Here are the percentages.
For the five years between 2008-2012 in cases where the
first victim is White, the oldest Offender arrested tends to also be White in 62% of the cases, Black in 12% of cases and Unknown in 24% of the time. This is, oddly enough, almost their exact overall proportions in the general population respectively.
Here is the opposite View for Black Victims.
When you reverse that for the same years where the first victim is Black, the oldest Offender tends to also be Black in 55% of cases, White in 4.7% and
Unknown in 40% of the cases.
So what is shown here is that the 92% Black on Black and 83% White on White Murder percentage claimed by Klein and others is literally Backwards to what we really know [62% White on White, 55% Black on Black] when we include all the available data we have and readily admit what we don't know at the same time.
Another differential highlighted by those who use Klein's FBI source is the number when it comes to inter-racial murders that Blacks who Kill Whites outnumber the reverse by 431 to 193.
But the more complete data shows this isn't accurate either. It shows that for 2012 the differential is really 852 (Black on White) vs 344 (White on Black), but at the same time the unknown numbers in those cases are 1,620 and 3,092 respectively. It's not out of the realm of reasonableness to presume that the two to one relationship between the known offender relationships may in part be the result two to one relationship in the reverse for the unknown offenders. I mean, if we get to play Hannity's Hypothetical Hopscotch game here - why not?
Or to put it another way the difference between 852-344 [503] is much less than 3,092-1,620 [1,427]. John Roman's research tells us that White on Black killings are considered "justified" by more than 225% over the reverse - could that be a factor in modifying these "unknown" stats by moving some of them [potentially as many as 700] out of the Murder Victims and into the "Justifiable Homicide" column? We don't know.
This shows one consistency that there are more total black victims than white victims of murder. Proportionally based on population [5:1] that's outrageous, and consequently Black people should be more far worried and afraid of being murdered by an over 5 to 1 differential than White people should be worried about the same thing. If you want to use population proportions, that's what it tells you. But as always, it doesn't work out that way for people who insist that they have it worse - somehow - than black people do in America. There are over twice as many unknown offenders in cases where black are murdered compared to whites and proportionally that's completely insane. If we assume these numbers are accurate then Black people are proportionally 5 times more likely to be killed, and then almost 10 times more likely to have their murder go unsolved? Yeah, madness.
Are the people who committed most of those murders also black people? Well, the full data says we know that's true in 55% of the cases, but in the final 40% what we really know is that we really don't know.
If we knew who the unknown perpetrators were, it's not beyond the pale to consider the possibility that they would more than exceed the disproportionate gap between inter-racial cases that are known. We should be able to considered that possibility - even if we can't prove it - as much as we can consider the possibility that Michael Brown, and Jonathan Ferrell and Renisha McBride all "Charged".
The bottom line is that the same Murder by Race rate that Klein attempted to use is really 55% Black and 62% White - while 40% of the Black victim cases are unknown and 24% of the White Victim cases are unknown.
What this tells us isn't that Black people are "More Violent" than whites exactly, it's that their Murder Cases don't get solved by a ratio of Two To One and we really don't know what's really going on with any real confidence. They really can't make a general prejudgement as to who is dangerous to them and who isn't using data that is this compromised and includes such a high level of "unknowns".
We should indeed "wait until the facts are in" before judgement. In fact, that should be the default requirement for all Police when dealing with any of the public.
"Wait Until the Facts Are In before Delivering Judgement" is in fact exactly what the Public Is Paying you to do. That's why we supply the Gun, and the Pepper Spray, and the Taser, and the Body Armor. We expect what we supply to be used respectfully, or else we may have to consider taking some of your toys away if you can't play with them properly.
Yes, the rate of Black people to be murdered as well as to be arrested for Murder and Robbery is completely out of proportion with their general population as shown by this FBI Table of Arrests By Race - as if everything else about Black and White people are in exact proportions as well, when we all know damn well they are not and that all things simply are not "equal" - however, proportionally Black people are between 1/2 and 1/3rd of the number of White people arrested for Every. Other. Crime. there is. even though the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates they get stopped at least 60% more often even when they're only 50% as likely to have done anything wrong. Black people are three times more likely to be threatened or experience use of force during a police stop and twice as likely to be arrested during a police stop, which again about half of which shouldn't have even happened in the first place.
So the fact that their arrest numbers for everything except Murder and Robbery are only 1/2 and 1/3rd and not 1/4th and 1/5th of that of White people - as they would be if "all things were equal" - really shouldn't be a surprise. It's not like anything in these situations is "perfectly equal".
But are they "More Violent" and is "Black on Black" crime an epidemic that overshadows or excuses the well documented excessive stops, searches, arrests and uses of forced by police that is clearly out of proportion with their actual likelihood of Black people placing them in a "dangerous" or "murderous" situation?
I don't think so Joe, I don't think so.
Are Blacks the ones who need to desperately "change their culture" because they're regularly making assumptions based on faulty biased data or are Police failing to "wait before pronouncing [summary deadly] judgement" and are police the ones whose corrupted culture desperately needs to be changed?
It may be early judge, but if they've been misreading their own data as badly as Klein and so many others have been misreading it for decades, I think it's the latter, more than the former.
Vyan