Conservatives should stop clicking the race bait
Viral videos of interracial assaults are a misleading distraction
I am fairly new to Twitter, having signed up just three months ago after Elon Musk took the helm and restored some semblance freedom of speech. Recently I’ve noticed an uptick in my Twitter feed of viral videos depicting racially charged confrontations and violent assaults. These videos are repugnant and should not be liked or shared by conservatives who desire a nation united by love of God, family, country and fellow Americans.
The game the elites and leftists are playing is distract, divide and conquer. And it is working to some degree, which is unfortunate. Conservatives have never been more engaged in political activism at the grassroots level and this has put our adversaries into panic mode. Every week there seems to be a new scare tactic designed to take the focus off issues that enjoy broad support among working class people of all colors and creeds. We want secure borders, law and order, election integrity, economic prosperity, fiscal responsibility, and of course protection of our sacred rights under the Constitution. Instead, we get a never-ending stream of fear-mongering from the climate change apocalypse to World War III and, most recently — get this one — the specter of an extraterrestrial invasion!
But of all the fear porn that is pumped out daily, perhaps the most pernicious, the most evil, are the videos designed to incite racial distrust, hatred and even violence. Why is it even permissible to post and share these videos on social media platforms like Twitter? To advocate violence is surely a violation of the terms of service. Why, then, can people freely share videos that depict actual violence and stir up racial animus, especially when the videos, as is frequently the case, involve minor children? Why don’t the good liberal content moderators flag and ban these videos?
The answer, methinks, is that these race-baiting videos serve an important political purpose. You see, African American voters have been trending Republican over the last several election cycles. After claiming just 4% of the black vote in Barack Obama’s historic 2008 win, Republicans earned 6% of the black vote in 2012, 8% in 2016 and 12% in 2020. That’s right, Donald Trump got 50% more black voters in 2020 than he did in 2016, and he garnered almost 20% of the black male vote. Is it any wonder the elites of this country want working class blacks and whites at each other’s throats rather than working together to get a bigger piece of the American dream in a society where an increasing share of the wealth has shifted into the hands of the top 1%?
Let’s keep our eye on the ball and evaluate whether white conservatives should fear African Americans. The answer, you will see, is a resounding no.
We should start by ignoring the anecdotal evidence seen in the viral videos because these are not accurate reflections of reality. America is a much safer place overall now than it was 30 years ago, even with the recent uptick in crime ushered in by the pandemic. For example, in 1991, the murder rate in America hit a peak of 9.8 per 100,000 and in the ensuing 23 years declined steadily until it reached a low of 4.4 per 100,000 in 2014, then ticked up to 6.5 in 2020. So, your odds of being killed by anyone of any race is significantly lower now than it was in 1991. And since most violent crime occurs within racial groups, if you are white your odds of being killed by a black person are even lower.
How low were the odds of a white person being killed by a black person in 2019, the most recent year in which statistics are available via the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program? Well let’s do some math. The rate at which blacks committed murder came to 8.7 per 100,000 in 2019. However, only 17.2% of murders by black perpetrators were committed against white victims. That means that whites have a murder victimization rate of about a 1.5 per 100,000 at the hands of blacks. Let’s round that number up to 2 in 100,000 since the murder rate spiked up in 2020. Keep in mind, that’s not 2%. It’s not one tenth of 2% or even one hundredth of 2%. That’s one thousandth of 2%. The takeaway from the data is that if you’re a white person worried about being killed by a black person in 2023 you should worry about something else because the odds are 99.998% that this will not happen to you.
What about the violent crime of aggravated assault? The viral videos, after all, usually depict a violent interracial assault. Well the FBI’s UCR does not break down aggravated assault by race of the victim, but the data is nevertheless reassuring. In 2019, there were 821,182 aggravated assaults nationally, for a rate of 250 per 100,000 population. Sounds like a lot. But that translates to 25 per 10,000 or 2.5 per 1,000 or 0.25 per hundred. So there’s a 99.75% chance, overall, that you will not be the victim of an aggravated assault. Since blacks are identified as the perpetrators in about 33% of cases in which arrests are made for aggravated assault, and since the majority of violent crime is committed within racial groups, this puts the odds at about 99.98%, if you are white, that you will not be the victim of an aggravated assault perpetrated by a black person.
The data rings true. Most people of all racial and ethnic group are decent people who want good lives for themselves and a better future for their children. The criminal element is always a small percentage — the rotten apples who spoil the bunch. But anecdotal stories and especially dramatic videos have a way of captivating the mind and throwing the data and rationality out the window. That is why it is imperative that conservatives focus on the facts and reject the race-baiting click bait.
We are all Americans and we are in this together. And it is encouraging that so many talented leaders and influencers in the black community have risked public scorn to lend their powerful voices to the MAGA movement. It is far more constructive to warmly embrace and support our brothers and sisters who join us on the journey to creating a better future for America than to share random videos of misguided people lashing out in anger. So please stop posting and sharing this counterproductive garbage.