Racism in America

I feel compelled to write a few thoughts about current affairs. There is a great debate about racism in the US. And a fairly famous NFL player has stirred the controversy in a way that should be examined, but is NOT.

2020-06-04 - Edit

Some of the data here is out-of-date. Many will make the argument that the rate of blacks killed by police is 3-4 times more that whites. 'Rates' are a percentage, as in number killed per one million population and the above is true. However, it is also true that the rates of crime in the black polulation is 3-4 time greater (see my original paragraph, below). And that is were the focus should be - why is there so a disparity of crime rates.
Some will argue the disparity is caused by oppression of black people by white America but I think it can be easily shown that they do so out of anger or envy, probably caused by their own failure to take advantages of the opportunities aforded them by virtue of being Americans.

It should also be noted, the total number of people killed by police shootings remains nearly constant every year at around 1,000. (5,360 since Jan. 1, 2015) There is a probablity theory for this but I have lost my source info so I'm unable to cite it here.

End of Edit

First, I believe a serious study of racism in America would conclude that we must acknowledge there are individuals that are racists and bigots. However, America and its institutions of business, corporation, government, and society as a whole are NOT inherently, or systemically racist. I don't think that anyone can cite any statistics that would support the idea of systemic racism in America, even in police departments.

In just a single search, I was able to find statistics from The Washington Post on Police shootings and then with an additional few minutes, create the following table summarizing the data by race.

Race	Number	Percent
Asian	23	1.33%
Black	442	25.56%
Hispanic	289	16.71%
Native American	20	1.15%
Other	22	1.15%
White	845	48.87%
Unlisted	88	5.09%
Total	1729

You will notice that Whites were killed, by police, at nearly twice the number of Blacks. And, the number of blacks killed barely equaled the total of all other races, excluding whites. These cold, hard facts proof that police departments are NOT inherently racist. I argue that if there is any 'systemic' bigotry in government, at least at the federal level, it is a bias toward liberalism, not racism.

And there is this, American Renaissance web site article. It does not include murder stats, only all other violent crimes, but studying the numbers will not support racism by White Americans. What I think it shows is that most violent crime is White-on-White and Black-on-Black.

People will use the statistic that as a percent of the population, blacks are killed by police at a rate three times greater than the white percentage. This is true, but the same people will fail to point out that the black populations is only 14.5% (as of 2015), but black men acount for about 40% of homicides, and over 22% of all other violent crimes.Now, go search out the number of Black on Black murders in Obama's home town of Chicago since he has been President.

The NFL

Thursday, October 6, 2016, I switched on my DirecTV to catch a bit of the pre-game before the Niner's-Cardinal game. What were they talking about? Football? NO! Colin Kaepernick? And, not his play as quarterback, and not whether he would start, but how he is now kneeling, instead of sitting, during the National Anthem. Then Coach Cowher showed off his ingnorance by trying to make the case that kneeling during the anthem was the same as kneeling to pray. And, of course, all the other 'experts' failed to challenge him, nodding in sycophantic agreement.

Now, the NFL is attempting to blame the decline of their viewership (down 12% for Sunday games) on American's interest in this year's Presidental election. If the NFL has conducted a Poll on this subject, they have not released the results. By reading the comments posted on a couple of online articles about the decline in NFL ratings, the overwhelming majority of them say they are tuning out because the NFL has become too politized. They are tired of seeing $20 million athletes kneeling, or saluting 'Black Power', instead of saluting America for being the one place in the World they can make $20 million for playing a game.

I changed the channal and watched a movie.

America is a great country, and one of the things that make it great is the freedoms our Founding Fathers defined in our Constitution. One of the best is Americans freedom to organize protests to address grievences. I certainly have no problem with a group such as BLM (Black Live Matter) organizing or protesting. However, my problem with BLM is their protest is based on a false premise. They say that the police, and police departments, will shoot black men just because they are 'black men'. They say the police are 'out to get black men', but there is no basis for these statements in any facts. In fact, they can be demonstratively proven incorrect - look at the table above!

Now, Colin Kaepernick started his protest of the National Anthem at NFL games, based on his blind acceptance of the BLM movement. These protests have now become 'viral' at football games, even down to high school games, and into NFL broadcast booths.

I say it's viral because it is a virus. A virus that needs to be stopped. The antidote, the vaccine for this virus, is the plain truth that America is not 'systemically' bigoted, that with exceptions (which there will always be), Americans are not racist.

Crime is a much, much larger problem than the occasional racist displaying his ignorance, magnified by the media and BLM. Crime prevention should be the focus. If BLM were true serious about saving the lives of black men, women, and children, they should organize and work with the police to reduce the crime and the murder of young black men in the streets of Chicago and other citys rife with with hige crime rates in their black communities.