AN UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH ABOUT EXCESSIVE U.S. POLICE BRUTALITY AGAINST BLACKS

Effective solutions require proper understanding.  Some topics are easier to discuss than others but, ultimately, the truth is only revealed to those who are open-minded to accurate data and sound logic.

Case and point, for instance, there are some credible and troubling statistics that must be kept in mind when evaluating police using excessive force on black suspects.   The following is based primarily on FBI crime stats:

Blacks are 12.7% of the US population.   Whites are 60.7% of the US population (or 73% if White Hispanics are included).  Basically, there are five times as many white people as black people in the US. Between blacks and whites, here is the breakdown for their respective contribution to total homicides in the US for 2018:

Black Offenders: 6,318 (38.7% of all murder)

White Offenders: 4,884 (29.9% of all murder)

This suggests blacks are one-fifth the number of people in the US as whites, yet commit nearly 30% more murder (1,434 / 4,884 = 29.4%).

If whites were committing homicide at the same rate as blacks, they would need to have committed approximately 31,500 murders in 2018.  But according to the data, whites committed 4,884. And so (with 31,500 / 4,884), the data suggests that blacks are committing 6.45 times as many murders per capita as whites.

We have to factor in disproportionate false conviction rates for homicide, which are estimated to be 50% higher for blacks than whites.  False conviction rates in general are estimated around 4%.  But even with a large margin of error, the difference in terms of murders per capita is still around six-fold for blacks, compared to whites.

Similar disproportions exist in metrics of other violent crimes, as well, not just murder.

This is not mere political opinion.  It is no component of any race-related agenda, and none of this data has any implications for racist ideas about genetics, supremacy, etc.  No attempt to use this data for such purposes should be tolerated.  But this data needs to be shown, because it has huge implications for the way we view police using excess force disproportionately against blacks.

Nearly any cop will tell you that "profiling" is one of the most important parts of their job.  They have to read any situation and make a prediction about someone's behavior and level of danger, and one of the best resources for that prediction comes from their past experience in the field.  What the crime data above is showing us is that, since blacks per capita (as in, a random black person) are six times as likely to commit a murder (or murder again) compared to whites, the cops who deal with criminals and suspects daily will naturally notice—even if they never expected to—that encounters and investigations with black individuals are indeed more likely, on average, to entail or result in some serious violence, particularly homicide.  They then adjust their expectations accordingly, and use extra caution with black suspects going forward.

Consider for a moment if people wearing green hats tended to be six times as likely to murder or commit violent crime as people wearing blue hats.  With this in mind, you can anticipate that people in green hats will come to have more excess police brutality against them, higher false conviction rates, higher imprisonment, more likely to be pulled over and/or harassed by cops, etc.

There is no doubt a systemic problem in black communities (brought largely by centuries of white oppression) has led to such desperation including high occurrence of homicide and other violent crime.  Wealthy, educated, and safe neighborhoods (black or white) do not have massive homicide rates.  What this suggests is a needed focus on helping build black economies and social programs.  What it disputes is a need to campaign against all cops for allegedly being exceptionally and unfairly discriminatory or racist against blacks, in general.

With that said, it must still be made clear that there are many racist white people (and non-whites) in the US.  Many of them are cops, and they can be well-networked, nepotistic, and conspiratorial.  This is a particular problem in the southern "Bible belt".  Suspected instances of corrupt cops and departments should be taken seriously and investigated and addressed case-by-case.  Over-generalizing these instances to apply to cops in-general distorts the true source of the problem and creates more problems, nationally.

The recent murder of George Floyd was an obvious case of blatant and calloused disregard for human life, most likely derived in racism to a significant degree.  But these conditions and reasoning cannot be assumed of every situation involving a black man that is killed by a cop.   Let's focus on the the problem at its source—not the symptom.