National conversations on race must be based on fact
The Trayvon Martin trial and verdict poured fresh salt on some of America’s old wounds and brought race in America back to the forefront of the national discussion. This was largely a good thing and a lot of important insights were shared. However there was also a lot of misinformation and attempts to shift the narrative. One important instance of this was the assertion that African Americans en masse were focusing on an interracial murder when black-on-black murders were the real issue. And while it is true that a very high percentage of black murders occur at the hands of other African-Americans — about 93 percent— the “epidemic” is largely misunderstood.
The central issue here is that “black-on-black” crime is an unfortunate reality but it has little to do with race. Criminals are normally motivated by opportunity and convenience, and this is why blacks are often the target of black crime. African-Americans are more likely to live close to other African-Americans making them easy targets for a variety of different crimes, including murder.
But 86 percent of white murder victims are killed by other whites, yet you never see reports about the white-on-white crime epidemic. This is because that story doesn’t fit conveniently into preconceived notions about the criminality of the race. So while on its face black-on-black crime might seem like a major issue, the underlying socioeconomic factors that lead to crime are the much more important takeaway. Yet the same people who exposed faux outrage at the idea of the Trayvon Martin case gaining so much publicity over the many black youths killed by other blacks in our inner cities support economic policies that serve to further drive African Americans to crime.
There were also certain insinuations that no one cares about the deaths in our countries inner cities. Ben Shapiro, an editor for Breitbart.com specifically claimed in a tweet that Obama and the media don’t care about the death of youth in Chicago. However there has been coverage of the violence in Chicago, and Obama has made specific comments on it multiple times. Shapiro himself wrote an article about Obama’s PAC Organizing for Action citing Chicago’s murders in a pitch for further gun control. It is something that would help ease the violence in the city even more than media attention.
Race will always be a very terse and difficult issue in America. But the best way to approach it is to get past all the conjecture and biases and look at the real issues. Black-on-black crime is not an epidemic; it is the predictable result of centuries of oppression, denial of opportunity, and general convenience. Any differences between it and white-on-white crime can be explained through economic factors. The way to actually address black-on-black crime, or any crime for that matter is to address the socioeconomic factors that push our youth toward crime.