Why facts and all lives matter
The late Democratic Senator D. P. Moynihan said, “You are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.” Facts have unfortunately not been at a premium after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a White police officer. It is stated as a fact that racist cops shoot Black people disproportionately because 25% of those killed are African-Americans-who make up 13% of the US population. But this ignores the rate at which police encounter Black Americans and the crime rates in American cities with large Black populations.
What the evidence actually shows Detailed research from the University of Michigan and Harvard-ironically including information from a database compiled by the Guardian newspaper, shows that officers shoot in proportion to the ethnicities they encounter, that Black officers are more likely to use their weapons, and that in reality US police do not kill Black people disproportionately. Moreover, there is no evidence that George Floyd's killing was from a racial motive. Some evidence may be found. But we should not automatically assume it simply beause the police officer was white and the victim Black. Otherwise we prejudge the issue; in other words, we show prejudice.
Some brave reporters have
confronted demonstrators with this evidence but are invariably met with a blank
refusal to listen. So decisively do racial myths take hold, and so powerful
have identity politics and the race-mongers become in America. Unfortunately, they
are gaining ground here.
Chicago’s population is roughly a third White, Hispanic and Black. But 75% of the murders are committed by Blacks. Black males aged 15-35 comprise 4% of the US population but from this group come the perpetrators of 50% of gun murders. A large majority of murder victims are Black and are murdered by other Blacks. The grim total increases year on year, but these are thousands of Black lives which do not seem to matter.
Who is actually responsible? The USA is a federal nation in which all the cities where the recent riots occurred are run by the Democratic Party, usually for many decades. The Democratic Party is the system there. Minneapolis in Minnesota-with a Democrat Governor, has had a Democrat mayor for 46 years and the city council consists of 12 Democrats and 1 Green. It also has a Black police chief. For the previous 8 years it had a restraint policy which allowed police to render a suspect unconscious.
Lisa Bender has been the council chairman for 6 years while the city has had the restraint policy. Responding to the question about what she would do if someone broke into her home, she replied that phoning for the police comes from a position of privilege. She is one of the main supporters of defunding the police. She always intended this and now can propose it, taking advantage of a situation she helped to create.
All lives don’t matter equally In Dallas Texas another man: Tony Timpa, died from being suffocated by police. In handcuffs, he pleaded for his life, saying repeatedly “You’re gonna kill me.” Face down, the officers thought he was sleeping. They can be heard joking about it being time to wake up and go to school and making him waffles for breakfast. The mixed White/Black group of officers was never charged. Tony Timpa was White. Film of his killing did not go viral and there were no riots.
In Minneapolis, a Somali-American (i.e. Black) police officer shot and killed an unarmed White woman, Justine Diamond. He was neither sacked nor arrested immediately and there were no demonstrations-although he was eventually jailed. The officer had been welcomed into the Minneapolis police department as heralding its diversity, although it is clear from his record that there were doubts about his suitability.
Distraction politics shouldn’t fool us The inner cities in the USA are run by Democrats who mainly preside over school systems which fail Black youngsters. Minnesota is one of the highest performing states overall. But its school achievement by Black students is no better than Mississippi. Washington DC’s mayor had ‘Black Lives Matter’ painted in giant letters on the road to the White House where resides a president who has been in office for three years but does not run the city, as opposed to a Democrat city hall which has been in office almost for ever and does. Last year saw the worst murder rate for a decade and a massive gap in achievement between White and Black school students in the former’s favour.
Who actually suffers most? Most protests after George Floyd’s killing were perfectly peaceful. Nobody was forced to loot and to burn. But Democrat politicians repeatedly encourage looting and arson by saying that crimes against property don’t matter. This ignores the fact that people were killed in the riots and that these were almost all Blacks and other minorities. The Democrat (White) Attorney-General of Massachusetts said, “America is burning, but that’s how forests grow.” Her nice Boston suburb was not burning. It is mainly the inner-city businesses owned by Blacks and other minorities which have been looted and torched. The future for these communities is bleakly predictable. Why should employers whose premises have been destroyed come back? The only businesses which will remain will be low value, a few stores with higher prices to account for risk, and pawn shops.
A game of statues There has been a lot of distraction politics going on in the USA, but we have the same thing here. A petition to remove the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol attracted all of 11,000 signatures in a major city. The Labour mayor had 5 years to decide to remove the statue but did nothing. It is possible to make a reasoned argument to remove it, to leave it as a largely ignored pigeon perch, or to erect an education display around it. But for a senior police officer in effect to condone vandalism simply undermines confidence in the police.
It was foolish for London’s mayor to box up Churchill’s statue. Some graffiti on it would simply result in a headline in the Daily Mail. The police can cope with disorder by the statue and cenotaph because there are few shops, businesses and homes nearby. But elsewhere in the capital there are plenty of juicy shops and businesses to loot and burn. The sight of a senior police officer standing by in Bristol and police retreating before rioters in London simply allows troublemakers to smell weakness. It encourages disorder rather than preventing it.
Taking the knee-It’s all about me ‘Taking the knee’ to accept collective guilt for something for which one is not responsible, and which is not even true, is both morally objectionable and absurd. It is even more foolish for firms which had a connection with slavery more than 200 years ago to pay ‘reparations’ to people at a far remove in the modern world. They will simply end up financially supporting more of the divisive promoters of identity politics. That is why we need to hold fast to facts rather than false opinions, and all lives matter.
Chicago’s population is roughly a third White, Hispanic and Black. But 75% of the murders are committed by Blacks. Black males aged 15-35 comprise 4% of the US population but from this group come the perpetrators of 50% of gun murders. A large majority of murder victims are Black and are murdered by other Blacks. The grim total increases year on year, but these are thousands of Black lives which do not seem to matter.
Who is actually responsible? The USA is a federal nation in which all the cities where the recent riots occurred are run by the Democratic Party, usually for many decades. The Democratic Party is the system there. Minneapolis in Minnesota-with a Democrat Governor, has had a Democrat mayor for 46 years and the city council consists of 12 Democrats and 1 Green. It also has a Black police chief. For the previous 8 years it had a restraint policy which allowed police to render a suspect unconscious.
Lisa Bender has been the council chairman for 6 years while the city has had the restraint policy. Responding to the question about what she would do if someone broke into her home, she replied that phoning for the police comes from a position of privilege. She is one of the main supporters of defunding the police. She always intended this and now can propose it, taking advantage of a situation she helped to create.
All lives don’t matter equally In Dallas Texas another man: Tony Timpa, died from being suffocated by police. In handcuffs, he pleaded for his life, saying repeatedly “You’re gonna kill me.” Face down, the officers thought he was sleeping. They can be heard joking about it being time to wake up and go to school and making him waffles for breakfast. The mixed White/Black group of officers was never charged. Tony Timpa was White. Film of his killing did not go viral and there were no riots.
In Minneapolis, a Somali-American (i.e. Black) police officer shot and killed an unarmed White woman, Justine Diamond. He was neither sacked nor arrested immediately and there were no demonstrations-although he was eventually jailed. The officer had been welcomed into the Minneapolis police department as heralding its diversity, although it is clear from his record that there were doubts about his suitability.
Distraction politics shouldn’t fool us The inner cities in the USA are run by Democrats who mainly preside over school systems which fail Black youngsters. Minnesota is one of the highest performing states overall. But its school achievement by Black students is no better than Mississippi. Washington DC’s mayor had ‘Black Lives Matter’ painted in giant letters on the road to the White House where resides a president who has been in office for three years but does not run the city, as opposed to a Democrat city hall which has been in office almost for ever and does. Last year saw the worst murder rate for a decade and a massive gap in achievement between White and Black school students in the former’s favour.
Who actually suffers most? Most protests after George Floyd’s killing were perfectly peaceful. Nobody was forced to loot and to burn. But Democrat politicians repeatedly encourage looting and arson by saying that crimes against property don’t matter. This ignores the fact that people were killed in the riots and that these were almost all Blacks and other minorities. The Democrat (White) Attorney-General of Massachusetts said, “America is burning, but that’s how forests grow.” Her nice Boston suburb was not burning. It is mainly the inner-city businesses owned by Blacks and other minorities which have been looted and torched. The future for these communities is bleakly predictable. Why should employers whose premises have been destroyed come back? The only businesses which will remain will be low value, a few stores with higher prices to account for risk, and pawn shops.
A game of statues There has been a lot of distraction politics going on in the USA, but we have the same thing here. A petition to remove the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol attracted all of 11,000 signatures in a major city. The Labour mayor had 5 years to decide to remove the statue but did nothing. It is possible to make a reasoned argument to remove it, to leave it as a largely ignored pigeon perch, or to erect an education display around it. But for a senior police officer in effect to condone vandalism simply undermines confidence in the police.
It was foolish for London’s mayor to box up Churchill’s statue. Some graffiti on it would simply result in a headline in the Daily Mail. The police can cope with disorder by the statue and cenotaph because there are few shops, businesses and homes nearby. But elsewhere in the capital there are plenty of juicy shops and businesses to loot and burn. The sight of a senior police officer standing by in Bristol and police retreating before rioters in London simply allows troublemakers to smell weakness. It encourages disorder rather than preventing it.
Taking the knee-It’s all about me ‘Taking the knee’ to accept collective guilt for something for which one is not responsible, and which is not even true, is both morally objectionable and absurd. It is even more foolish for firms which had a connection with slavery more than 200 years ago to pay ‘reparations’ to people at a far remove in the modern world. They will simply end up financially supporting more of the divisive promoters of identity politics. That is why we need to hold fast to facts rather than false opinions, and all lives matter.
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