Why the Claims by Black Lives Matter on Police Shootings Are False

Executive Summary

• The media is not telling the real story of racial discrimination by police officers in fatal shootings.
• This media is very clearly missing the real story with police shootings and violent crime statistics.

Introduction

The familiar story is that blacks are racially profiled when shot by police officers in the US. This hypothesis is generally accepted based on anecdotal evidence, examples that have been cherry picked by professional grievance organizations like BLM, with the traditional method of expression being demonstrations around the police shooting of a black man. Several groups, but most prominently the organization Black Lives Matter, promote the idea that all or nearly all of the shootings are racially motivated and that blacks have far out of proportion deaths by police officers. In this article, we analyze the statistics of police homicides to determine the validity of this claim.

Our References for This Article

If at any time you want to see our references for this article and also other Brightwork related articles see this link.

The Data Set

*To begin, nothing in this article should be construed as being supportive or indifferent to unwarranted killings of civilians by police or any other abuse of power by police. Instead, this article is a mathematical analysis of the claims made by Black Lives Matter. 

Let us look at the racial breakdown of murders by police officers.

This is based on the Washington Post data and tabulates death by police between 2015 and 2017 (link included in the references).

The legend is Blue =Whites, Blacks = Orange, Hispanic = Green, NA = Red, Asians = Purple (1.59%).

The US population is roughly 60% white (probably lower as the last census was in 2012, and every year, the US’s white population declines somewhat). Still, they represent 47% of the police homicides. Of course, that is that is a lower incidence than blacks, which, while only being 13% of the US population representing 24% of all police-induced fatalities.

Generally, that is the only disparity pointed out.

See this standardized coverage of the topic by The Washington Post.

Black Americans are disproportionately killed by police.

Although half of the people shot and killed by police are white, black Americans are shot at a disproportionate rate.

They account for just 13 percent of the U.S. population, but more than a quarter of police shooting victims. The disparity is even more pronounced among unarmed victims, of whom more than a third are black.

The Washington Post does not explicitly state this, but it is implied that there is a racial bias in police officers’ use of violence against blacks.

The statement by the Washington Post about the numbers of unarmed kills is misleading.

First, the total number of unarmed kills by police officers is quite small. Furthermore, the unarmed disparity between blacks and whites is also quite small.

It is a curious observation that unarmed police kills are a significant issue; the statistics show that this occurs only in around 6.75% of all police homicides.

Blacks are more likely to be killed by police when unarmed than whites. However, not by very much. 6.83% of whites are killed when unarmed, and 7.28% of blacks are unarmed. 7.28 – 6.83 = .45.

.45 / 6.83 is 6.5% difference.

However, is that such a significant difference to highlight? Asians are even more likely to be killed by police when unarmed than are blacks.

In two years, the total number of unarmed black individuals killed by police was 63. Let us annualize it, as all of the numbers discussed are annualized. That is around 31.5 individuals per year. In a country of 320,000,000 individuals, this is an extremely low cause of mortality.

For context, let us review the leading causes of death in the US on an annual basis.

Heart disease: 647,457

Cancer: 599,108

Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936

Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201

Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383

Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404

Diabetes: 83,564

Influenza and pneumonia: 55,672

Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,633

Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173 – CDC

• For example, around 600,000 people per year die of cancer in the US. Many regulations could reduce this number, but we don’t bother passing the legislation. For at least a decade and a half, there has been an active decrease in environmental regulations, and this gets significantly less coverage than the narrative of unarmed black men being killed by police.
• Heart disease is roughly similar, yet we let food companies function with extremely little regulation when we know what food regulation could be passed to make immediate impacts on heart disease.

One way or another, everyone dies. However, the fact that close to 170,000 people die per year from accidents gives an indicator of how small a number like 31.5 is in a country with such a large population. As will be covered further on in this article, activists like Black Lives Matter discuss “saving black lives.” However, to reduce mortality, one needs to focus on the risks that have substantial numbers. Not on numbers that are politically exciting. And the numbers of all police shootings are too small to make a significant focus on their reduction a consistent effort. Therefore, Black Lives Matter is not only wasting their time but wasting society’s time and resources by focusing on extremely small incidents of mortality that happen to trigger them emotionally.

This is a similar problem that anti-terrorism advocates have passing laws to fight terrorism. The likelihood of being killed by a terrorist in the US is smaller than the probability of dying in a lawnmower accident (a seven-year average from 2011 forward of deaths from terrorism in the US is 34). This makes the enormous expenditure on things like Homeland Security and TSA airport checks, as well as foreign wars to “fight terror” complete wastes of resources — but they happened to enrich a number of politically connected companies, so they continue.

The Rough Magnitude Difference in Police Homicide of Blacks Versus Whites

Overall, black males are roughly 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white males. Black women are only 1.4 times as likely to be killed by police than white women. However, to conclude police officers’ racism in these violent acts, one must determine the behavioral differences between the races. For instance, overall, men are 20 times more likely to be killed by police than women. Is this evidence of sexism in the use of violence by police also? As there is virtually no discussion on this topic, it must be generally accepted that male behavior is different than female behavior. Otherwise, the police would seem to be very strongly biased against males. The vast majority of people in prison are men. What sexism. Doesn’t everyone know that women commit as many crimes as men, right? Isn’t it time to march for male over prosecution?

What about age discrimination?

Very few prison inmates are over 60 and almost none above seventy. And why are so few children below the age of 8 incarcerated? How are they beating justice? 

There is no distinction between observing these differences calling them ageism and what BLM is doing with black police shootings.

Something else that is unmentioned by The Washington Post is the disproportionate amount of violent crime performed by blacks versus both whites and all other races.

The following is from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, 2017.

Nonfatal Violent Incidents, by Total Population, Victim, and Offender Demographic Characteristics, 2017

The following is the number of violent offenders by race.

• White: 177,503
• Black: 111,010
• Hispanic: 77,433
• Asian: 14,329

Now let us replay the percentages of the country by race.

• White: 60%
• Black: 13%
• Hispanic: 16.7%
• Asian: 5.9%

Blacks are, adjusted for their population, are 2.88 times more likely to commit violent offenses than whites. (and also 17 times more likely than Asians) This means that blacks are more likely to be involved in violent crimes than they are to be killed by police (2.88 versus 2.5 times).

When one switches to murder statistics, the probability of violence being perpetrated by blacks is even higher.

To drill down even further, in 2017, black males accounted for 45 percent of homicides, even though they make up just seven percent of the population. That means they commit murders at a rate eight times higher than whites (emphasis added). – Conservative Review

Look at the armed people in the data set that were killed by police. Remember, the number of unarmed people of any color killed by police is a canard, and there is, in fact, very little difference in this percentage per race. Then consider the various things that those that were killed by police were armed.

Just read the list.

The number one way to encounter police in a violent context is to be holding a weapon. People holding weapons very firmly tend to be involved in a violent offense. Police homicides of blacks are underrepresented versus the frequency with which they are involved in violent offenses. 2.5 is less than 2.8, which means blacks are more involved in violent criminal acts than they are likely to be killed by police. However, Black Lives Matter, which performs no analysis and presents no numbers, tries to convince the country that blacks homicides are overrepresented versus the frequency of black involvement in violent offensives. This assertion by Black Lives Matter is false.

Offenders and Victims by Race

There is something else quite unusual in the statistics once one counts the victims of violent offenses by race.

• White: 229,015
• Black: 81,311
• Hispanic: 92,995
• Asian: 25,411

The coloration is to denote when the racial group has more or fewer victims than offenders.

Notice that blacks are the only group to have fewer victims than offenders — roughly 30,000 fewer victims. Of the groups, whites have the highest discrepancy between victims and offenders, at approximately 50,000. However, Asians have the highest percentage difference. Asians have (14,329/25,411) or 44% more victims than offenders.

In addition to blacks, others (or undefined races) also have a high discrepancy between victims and offenders (that is, more offenders than victims).

The implication is clear; blacks (and undefined races) commit far more violent crimes to non-blacks than any other racial group commits against them.

This woman at a Black Lives Matter protest says that “We Won’t Take it Anymore.” Presumably, the “We” is black people in the US. And what they won’t be taking is illegitimate police killings of black people. However, as we calculated, this is a very small risk. Why are these women willing to “take” continual black violence (which is mostly directed towards other blacks) but not take a very small risk of an illegitimate police killing? The number of unarmed blacks killed by police is 31.5 per year. This is lower than the number of people killed by lawnmowers or in lawnmower accidents per year.

Is this woman equally concerned about lawnmower accidents?

This woman’s son has about as much likelihood of being killed without cause by a police officer as being killed in a lawnmowing accident. If this woman were actually concerned with limiting mortality causes and not hot racial issues, she would be focused on things like black on black violence, food quality in black areas, and lower profile issues that have a far bigger impact on mortality. 

The Undiscussed Issue of the Higher Propensity of Blacks for Violent Crime

One question that might make sense to ask, instead of why blacks are more likely to be killed by police (which is more than in line with their propensity for violent crime) is why blacks have such a high violent crime rate, and why they victimize other races. Yet, media entities have become obsessed with violent crime from a strange source.

If one were to be dropped here from Mars with no preconceived notions about violence in America, one would come away with the impression that white supremacy is the biggest threat to public safety. DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan announced last month that the Department of Homeland Security would be using increased resources to confront “racially based violent extremism, particularly white supremacist extremism.”

According to the new National Crime Victimization Survey published by the Bureau of Justice Statics, out of the 593,598 interracial violent victimization crimes between blacks and whites reported in 2018, 90 percent were black against white, and 9.5 percent were white against black. That is simply astounding given that black people compose just 12 percent of the general population and white people comprise 62 percent. – Conservative Review

Black Lives Matter

This video shows the type of unrelated claims made by Black Lives Matter. All of these stories are anecdotes, and no overall statistics are used to describe the issue. The problem with this is that any anecdote can be selected to show whatever is desired. Anecdotally women murders can be found. However, it is infrequent for women to be involved in violent crime of any kind. 

The statement by the man is untrue. If unarmed, it is highly unlikely for a person of any race to be killed by the police. Repeated Black Lives Matter representatives’ observations make it seem that BLM has a strong need to misstate the statistics.

What is the Actual Incidence?

Secondly, the incidence of blacks being killed by police is quite low. Car accidents, cancer, heart disease, etc…are many hundreds to thousands of times more significant threats than police shootings. The comment that..

“police can be the judge, jury and executioner,”

is

“always on her mind,”

..is not rational, because again, other risks in life far higher. And this includes violence by blacks against each of these speakers.

There are roughly 81,000 violent acts towards blacks in the US per year. But only a few hundred black shootings by police officers. How can such a small likelihood incident (the likelihood of being killed by a police officer) be a dominant concern?

It is also false for Black Lives Matter to state, as they do in the video, that “1/2 the time” police are wrong. What statistics can Black Lives Matter present to support this assertion?

Look at the statistics, in close to 93% of the cases, and the individual is armed. Another of the data set is whether the homicide incident has considered an attack.

In 63% of cases (for all races), the killed individual is categorized as attacking the police officer. How is this 1/2 of the time the killing being wrong? In the vast majority of cases, the individual killed has a weapon. Why does the individual hold a weapon when having an interaction with a police officer? How many readers would choose to have a weapon in hand when interacting with a police officer? 

In the video, the statement is made “we are people too.” What does that have to do with the statistics? If you threaten a police officer with a weapon, you have a very good chance of having that officer retaliate against you.

Again, all of this is quite clear in the statistics; the rest amounts to posturing and hyperbole.

This entire segment above may as well have been talking about Santa Claus. The statistics do not support any systematic racism on the part of the police in the use of deadly force against blacks. This spokesman asserts a claim that is disproven and easily disproven by the statistics. Everything with Black Lives Matter spokespeople is anecdotal or hyperbolic, with no effort put into providing evidence for exaggerated claims. Due to PC culture, MSNBC and other media entities refuse to ask for statistics or to confront Black Lives Matter spokespeople with the relevant statistics. These shows’ intent is not to inform the audience — it is to allow the interviewed to make assertions and for the interviewer to get some sound bites. 

The Truth of the Need for Independent Investigators into Police Homicide

The point made in this video that investigations should be independent, rather than run by the local district attorneys, is entirely correct. And in cases where police are in the wrong, they are virtually never held accountable. But that is not a black issue. Police are overwhelmingly not held to account for homicides in error regardless of the person’s race wronged.

And the problems are much broader and deeper than how police in the US use violent means. Here are a few examples.

Item #1: Routine Violation of Civil Rights

Police routinely violate the civil rights of the citizenry as per the 4rth amendment.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The police are supposed to have a warrant to search for people or probable cause. Still, they intimidate citizens into allowing them to access searchable items because they can get away with it.

Item #2: Unwarranted Seizures

US police seize private property using seizure laws that give the police an incentive to take private property. Once taken, it is most often necessary to sue the government to get that property back. That is, the government will keep the property without the legal right to do so because they know the cost of individuals would bear to sue for the property’s return.

Item #3: Removal of an Important Tool for Police

Police had one of the primary weapons; the police baton was taken from them. This was done because the baton was involved in the overuse of force. However, what has replaced the baton (the tazer and various suppression holds) is, in many cases, more lethal. In some cases, the baton broke bones, but a broken arm or leg does not lead to death. And a trained police officer with a baton can pacify an individual without causing long term damage to their body. A baton allows a police officer to neutralize an individual quickly by interacting with an external limb rather than impacting the individual’s life support.

Item #4: Lack of Quality Control on Police Officers

Abusive police are routinely allowed to continue on the police force. And there is no suitable method for stopping police that is fired from one police department for abusive behavior, from merely getting jobs in other police departments. This is very similar to the lack of quality control for attorneys. It is virtually impossible for an attorney to be disbarred unless they are convicted of a crime. There are very few negative consequences for abusive or unethical behavior in both the police and attorney areas in both the police and attorney areas.

Item #5: Militarized Police Forces

Police in the US currently does not dress or behave like the police of several decades ago. They will often dress in tactical clothing and are given leftover or second hand US military equipment that they are not trained on how to use appropriately.

There are tons of problems with US police, and they have been known for decades but do not get changed. And this is just the policing side of the equation — the criminal justice system has an enormous set of problems from how the 6th amendment is routinely violated due to prosecution — to the fact that the living conditions in incarceration facilities are simply appalling and to the fact that private prisons promote increasing the number of people incarcerated — leaving the US with the highest incarceration rate in the world.

There is something very wrong with the overall US criminal justice system. It is proposed that such a high incarceration rate is not a legitimate criminal justice outcome, but instead a system of control—both inside of prison and outside of prison. Inside of prison, increasingly unpaid or barely paid labor creates a slave system. 

However, in the entire corrupt edifice that is the US criminal justice system, the smallest of the issues in this broken system is the number of unarmed blacks that police officers unjustly kills, from where the graphic above originates, is an insightful organization that performs analysis and that is ready to offer solutions (which will often be ignored due to lobbying from private prisons). However, most people have never heard of Prison Policy, while virtually everyone knows about Black Lives Matter. Prison Policy.org performs a detailed analysis of the problems in one part of the criminal justice system. A review of the Black Lives Matter website indicates that they don’t do expend much mental effort on analysis.

However, virtually none of the issues listed above are discussed for improvement until a police officer kills a black person. However, after the end of the protest and various convenience stores are vandalized — there is strikingly little effort or attention for improving any of these longstanding issues. Blacks should realize that much of the population in the US, not only blacks, want this system changed.

The rest of the population, which is the majority of the country, has close to no input in changing US policing. As for Black Lives Matter, it seems only to be interested in policing as it impacts blacks. How the overall US policing functions for the non-black US population is immaterial to Black Lives Matter. And with their inaccurate basis of knowledge, they are not an entity that can promote positive change in the US policing or to the overall criminal justice system.

Having the FBI Investigate Will Lead to the Truth?

That is a standard issue of investigative independence. And having the FBI investigate police shootings does not much improve this. The FBI is a political organization that has a history of entrapping individuals, being involved in murdering civil rights protesters, infiltrating unions to undermine them, and conspiring against progressive movements to prevent specific people from attaining political office. The idea that the FBI that still talks about J Edgar Hoover as an aspirational figure is not in a position to “independently investigate” much of anything. Once you know the FBI’s history, their conclusion on any topic becomes irrelevant.

Fact-Checking by Media Entities of BLM Claims

MSNBC does not attempt to provide any statistical analysis to check the Black Lives Mattersspokesman’s claims. The distinct impression is given that there is a valid claim that is being made.

This video shows the beginnings of Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter was created in response to one case, the Travon Martin case, where George Zimmerman, his killer, was acquitted (not a police officer, by the way) when he should not have been (there is some question as to what degree murder charge would have been appropriate). However, if a statistical analysis was performed before beginning a new organization, it would have been clear that it was unnecessary.

Black Lives Matter has, since its inception, made false claims around police violence. Black Lives Matter behaves as if black violent crime is not substantially higher than any other racial group. However, another racial group, Asians — demonstrates the relationship.

There will never be an “Asian Lives Matter” movement in the US (at least around police violence). This is because Asians are even less likely than whites to be involved in violent crime.

Furthermore, Black Lives Matter only appears to count black lives lost to white murderers — while the murder of blacks by blacks is many orders of magnitude higher. Black Lives Matter is a professional grievance organization that only cares about one race, and only if members of just one other race murder members of that race could be a similar organization for whites called White Lives Matter. This group would spring into action as soon as a black person murdered a white person this is so much more frequent in the US, this hypothetical White Lives Matter would have to be much more active.

Questioning the Status Quo in the Black Community

Do blacks who know fail to challenge Black Lives Matter?

One wonders if one in the black community is even allowed to question the validity of the movement. Blacks provide other blacks with positive reinforcement for being part of the cause. This positive reinforcement would be diminished if the actual statistics were understood.

So while the movement will not have a positive impact on saving black lives and will entirely overstate one small sliver of annual black mortality, it does make those that support the movement feel good.

Useful Use of Resources?

Black Lives Matter is one of the most wasteful uses of activist energy.

First, most of the people killed by police per year are not killed without cause. Second, even if the number is brought down, the total number of lives saved per year will be small. Tiny. This is necessarily true because the actual numbers are currently small. They are dwarfed in comparison to other causes of mortality.

A statement is made in the BLM video that..

The reality of blacks lives is that even when we fight, we die.

However, even if we focus on just violent causes, at 81,311 cases (not murder, but overall violent acts) against blacks (mostly by blacks) is an enormously higher risk to blacks than police violence. However, Black Lives Matter does not protest these violent acts. They prefer to focus on the roughly 300 blacks killed every year by police officers when most (but not all) of these kills are justifiable self-defense on the part of police officers.

How is this a good use of time, focus, and resources?

An activist group focused on nearly any health issue (diabetes, heart disease) would quickly improve black people’s lives than Black Lives Matter. Finally, Black Lives Matter entirely fails to come to terms with the far higher incidence of black violent crime. Black Lives Matter proposes, falsely, that all differences in kill rates are altogether due to racism by police officers. Black Lives Matter does not have any data to support this, and if they performed the analysis, they would find just the opposite is true.

The Case of Michael Brown

The second case illustrated in the video is about Michael Brown. So far, in this article, we have focused on the lack of statistical support for BLM’s claims around racial discrimination and police violence. However, now we will move the topic ofBLM’sBLM’s false allegations even on specific anecdotes.

And the video misleads the viewer by stating that Michael Brown had his hands up, when in fact, placements of the bullets in the body of Michael Brown showed he was charging the officer at the time he was shot. Michael Brown had already fractured the police officer’s eye socket and had attempted to take the officer’s gun. All of this information is publicly available, but The Fifth Estate, the producer of this video, does not attempt to explain any of this.

Michael Brown’s friend stated that Michael Brown was shot in the back while Michael Brown was running away, but the autopsy shows all of the bullets hit him in the front of his body.

Where is this confidence coming from BLM that this was an improper shooting? Is there a full analysis of this case on their website? No. BLM does not provide evidence — they merely assert. Those that cheerleader for BLM don’t seem to care about the facts of these incidents either. 

The False Story of “Stop Don’t Shoot.”

In Ferguson, protesters held up their hands and changed “Stop Don’t Shoot.”

 Al Sharpton encouraged demonstrators to use the gesture by saying, “If you’re angry, throw your arms up. If you want justice, throw your arms up. Because that’s the sign Michael was using. He had a surrender sign. That’s the sign you have to deal with. Use the sign he last showed. We want answers why that last sign was not respected.

With one claiming he had his hands in the air. That witness subsequently recanted his account. A United States Department of Justice investigation, under the leadership of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, found this claim inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence and witness testimony. – Wikipedia

Members of Congress are performing the “Michael Brown” pose, a pose that never occurred. While this posing is undoubtedly suitable for appealing to one’s constituents in non-white districts, it also happens to be false and creates an unjustified hostility toward police officers. Notice every one of these congressmen is not white. This is how to win votes. Did these politicians wait for the evidence to come in from the investigation? Of course, not, there are political points to be scored. Did any of these politicians apologize for repeating false information? Again, of course not. 

The DOJ has concluded Wilson did not know whether Brown was armed, acted out of self-defense and was justified in killing Brown. The majority of witnesses told federal investigators that the initial claims that Brown’s hands were up were not accurate.

“Hands up, don’t shoot” did not happen in Brown’s killing, and it is a characterization that deserves Four Pinocchios. Politicians should step carefully if they try to highlight this expression in the future. – The Washington Post

Even though “Stop Don’t Shoot” has been thoroughly disproven in the Michael Brown case, it continues to exist as a meme. Is this BLM trying to get to the truth or political theater?

It should be pointed out that we disagree with Ben Shapiro on at least half of his positions. However, in this video, he is quite accurate.

This is further covered in the video above, where it shows that the phrase became a meme based upon recanted testimony of Michael Brown’s friend who provided false information about the event to try to gain sympathy. 

Irresponsibility on the Part of Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter’s focus is reducing police violence against blacks. However, they are irresponsible in making claims that create an impression of injustice where it does not exist. Again, let us be specific; BLM’s claim is discrimination in the use of violence against blacks. The overall police violence level, its adoption of SWAT equipment, and SWAT techniques are not raised by BLM.

However, BLM has created this impression in the young and impressionable, and in many individuals who will never take the time to analyze the actual statistics. The researcher writing this article is a complainant against Black Lives Matter.

Due to BLM and other related activists’ false information disseminated, the police officer in the Michael Brown shooting was for a time at least forced to go into hiding. After the DOJ’s report came out exonerating the officer, BLM did not retract its statements. The facts of the case have had no bearing on the views of many blacks in the US.

Legitimate organizations do not jump to conclusions, make false claims, and then refuse to retract these claims once they are proven incorrect.

I do not focus on race issues or police violence issues, and Black Lives Matter had us thinking that there was some validity to the use of disproportionate use of deadly force against blacks. However, analyzing the data and learning that it is false is hugely disappointing. The general public cannot research every topic. If the general public cannot rely on accurate information, and if the media does nothing to fact check claims, then the overall level of disagreement and dysfunction increases because we end up arguing over false constructs.

Particularly the large media outlets with ample budgets to perform the research have entirely failed in providing accurate information to their audience. The media outlets ranging from ABC to MSNBC have been entirely brainless on this subject as if they have no access to any analytical capabilities whatsoever.

In a world with significant discussions around the importance of math literacy and widely available analytics tools, how could this controversy have gone on for so long without some significant media entity puncturing this claim?

The Validity of Colin Kaepernick and Other NFL Players Kneeling to Protest Police Violence

As the statistics do not support the racial bias in the use of deadly force on the part of police officers, this also means that the protests by Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players in taking a knee are misguided, as it relies on false assumptions.

Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players kneeling have taken up large amounts of coverage time for years on sports programs on sports programs. However, what is never discussed is whether the cause that is being protested for is valid. If the claim is not valid, then the protests are not logical. Colin Kaepernick should apologize — because his kneeling was based upon an evidence-free assertion.

This is the problem with taking policy advice from professional athletes or celebrities. Very few athletes or celebrities have the background to perform analysis.

However, while athletes and celebrities have an excuse in that, we expect them not to be knowledgeable about their pet projects, what is the ACLU’s excuse?

The ACLU is Bad at Math: Or Does Not Care What is True

The stereotype of attorneys being bad at math is true in the case of the ACLU.

Notice the ACLU’s endorsement of BLM.

Black Lives Matter has always been more of a human rights movement rather than a civil rights movement. BLM’s focus has been less about changing specific laws and more about fighting for a fundamental reordering of society wherein Black lives are free from systematic dehumanization. Still, the movement’s measurable impact on the political and legal landscape is undeniable.

At no point in their article on Black Lives Matter does the ACLU discuss whether the Black Lives Matter claims are true. The ACLU skips that verification and jumps quickly into the impact of Black Lives Matter. While attorneys are not expected to be able to perform mathematical analysis, it is certainly possible for the ACLU to hire non-attorneys to validate the Black Lives Matter claims. Yet, the ACLU has zero interest in doing this. And of course, if they did and published the results, they would lose their WOKE credentials. Better to be WOKE than accurate apparently. This is how the ACLU now functions. Originally intended as a legal defense for constitutional issues, they are now at least in part a professional grievance organization that directs its energies to WOKE topics.

This is a constant feature of the coverage of Black Lives Matter. Articles praise Black Lives Matter or critique them, generally for their tactics — however, what is exceedingly little covered is whether Black LivesMatter’s claims are true.

The following is a typical example of coverage of Black Lives Matter.

In White-dominated societies, nearly any demand for equality by people of colour is met by a backlash couched in terms of White victimhood. This has been as true for Black Lives Matter as it was for the civil rights movement.

Just as Black Lives Matter went global, so did the backlash.

One popular (and self-serving) theory holds that White identity politics is merely a response to movements like Black Lives Matter. But this gets the story backwards. Black Lives Matter is a response to White supremacy. The anger harnessed by figures like Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani is the anger of White privilege forced to defend itself.

How is any of this verifiable? Articles like this on Black Lives Matter are commonplace, with the author introducing a series of assertions without providing evidence. Black Lives Matter is making specific claims regarding the disproportionately violent treatment of blacks by police. As we have illustrated in this article, these assertions are not true. Black Lives Matter is creating the impression they are true through only publicizing killings of black individuals or through selectively reporting data points (i.e., staying silent when blacks murder blacks, or when an officer kills a person who is not black, etc.). In most cases, Black Lives Matter disseminates false information to the public about those cases. When this information is eventually debunked, Black Lives Matter does not issue retractions — so their followers think incorrect information — that is, changes the narrative of the incident is true.

However, rather than checking the validity of these specific claims, most media entities are more interested in heaping even more unsupported claims on top of the Black Lives Matter claims.

Our Surprise at What We Found

Before we spent the time to analyze the data, we thought that Black Lives Matter was highlighting real issues.

This is what much of the US population also thinks.

We came into this analysis thinking we would find support for Black Lives Matter instead of finding the opposite. This has engendered our bitterness at both Black Lives Matter and media entities that covered Black Lives Matter and put no effort into verification.

Black Lives Matter began its organization without looking at the data, and now that the organization has established itself, it will never look at the data as it would mean, if one were logical, disbanding the organization.

Black Lives Matter provides a constant stream of false information to the public. Their incorrect information is promoting riots, like the nationwide riots that have occurred in response to the George Floyd killing. As with the protests/riots in Missouri in response to Michael Brown, the participants are using the meme “Hands Up….Don’t Shoot,” which never happened in the Michael Brown case. Because Black Lives Matter did not issue a retraction, the protesters still think this occurred.  

Update for the George Floyd Riots

This article was initially published in November of 2019. We updated this section for the George Floyd riots.

We have another article, What are the Real Motivations Behind the George Floyd Protests? that covers the multifaceted reasons for which the false information provided by Black Lives Matter is only one of the reasons for the George Floyd riots.

However, Black Lives Matter is not the only entity releasing false information to the public on these topics. The riots are also promoted by the repeatedly false information released by the medical examiner’s offices that falsify the cause of death of those killed by police, as we cover in the article George Floyd and the Long History of Falsifying Autopsy Results. 

The Washington Post aired this segment, which has interviews with young black protesters. The protesters are going off of the George Floyd incident — and are so young they have no ability to think critically or perform research. Their logic was that if black people are shot, then it means that there is systematic discrimination. They point to Trevon Martin, who was killed in 2012 in an alternation — but not by a police officer. Black Lives Matter encourages entirely non-statistical thinking in its followers. Black Lives Matter is lead by adults but they dis-distribute information to the young, who have no way of validating what is true. 

Conclusion

The narrative presented by the media and by blacks and Black Lives Matter is false.

US blacks are far more likely to be involved in violent offenses than any other racial group in the country, and this explains the higher use of deadly force by police officers against blacks. It also predicts the higher use of deadly force by police officers against whites versus Asians.

Black shootings by police officers will continue until blacks cease being so disproportionately involved in violent crime. Indeed, on some occasions, police are in error/to blame, and when they are, irrespective of the race of the victim, there should be consequences. Advocates for justice are correct that now enough police are brought to account when they are in error. But this is not the overall pattern on display in US police shootings.

Videos Hitting on Many of the Same Points

This article was written before this video below was produced, but it hits on several of the same points as in this article—the video points to an inaccurate picture of police violence. The article above is explicit about the source of the false information being Black Lives Matter and media outlets that both refuse to perform research before reporting stories or report stories on the basis of getting ratings over-reporting each anecdote within the context of broader statistics.

and this..

Our article Black Lives Matter as a Scam Organization covers more background into BLM.

Sharing and Commenting

The establishment media does not want people to know anything written in this article. If those that oppose this presentation of Black Lives Matter, please share this article with people you know to increase awareness of BLM’s false claim. It is clear that BLM is pushing the envelope to see how many false claims they can make without receiving pushback and being challenged on accuracy.