Do Black Lives Matter?

 

The title that I have chosen is incendiary. Of this, I am wholly cognizant. To pose the question is to court rage. But that does not mean that it should not be asked – for rage of this sort is misplaced and serious thinking is required, as you will soon see.

Black lives ought to matter. Indeed, all human lives ought to matter. But do they? In particular, do they matter to the individuals who recently marched and demonstrated in this country’s streets?

Some of these do, indeed, care. But most of those who busied themselves ostentatiously displaying their virtue and intimating, if not shouting, that their fellow citizens were by and large utterly careless (or worse) fall firmly into that category themselves.

To see that this is so, one need only ask a simple question, “What about abortion?”

A thought experiment is in order. Consider what would happen if someone showed up for such a march carrying a sign that read, “Black Lives Matter! All Lives Matter! End Abortion!” Would such a person be welcome?

I think not – and, if I am right, the fact is pertinent. For a great many more black lives are snuffed out in abortion clinics each year than anywhere else. Year in and year out, more black babies are aborted than are born in the city of New York, and the like can be said for many another American metropolis.

Do those who marched care? Do these black lives – the lives of harmless, helpless innocents – matter to them? Not, I suspect, one whit.

Or try another thought experiment. Suppose someone joined such a demonstration carrying a sign that read, “Black Lives Matter! Introduce More Rigorous Policing!” What would happen to this individual? I shudder to think.

We need to keep one thing in mind. Very few black Americans die at the hands of the police. Those African-Americans who are fortunate enough not to have been murdered in the womb are far, far more likely to die at the hands of other black men than at the hands of the police. If we were to defund the latter, as many of the demonstrators urged, a great many more black men would be murdered than are now. The experiment has been tried over the last five years in Baltimore. The results are in, and they are not encouraging.

If black lives really mattered to the self-righteous in our midst, they would demand more and better policing. They would demand the abolition of public-sector unions, that civil review boards be established, and that the bad apples be rooted out of our police forces. Then, they would advocate increasing the money allocated to support cops on the beat, and they would suggest flooding the neighborhoods where black men kill black men with upright men (and women) of all races dressed in blue.

Let me add one final point. One can argue that a disproportionate number of black men die at the hands of the police only if one bases one’s calculations on the relative size of the black population and not on the relative number of crimes committed by black men. If a radically disproportionate number of criminals are black men, then, if the policing is done properly, the police will be far more likely to have unpleasant encounters with black than with white men – and that is what happens in every tolerably well-run city in the land. On most occasions, when a black man dies in the course of such an encounter, the policemen involved are in no way at fault. What happened in Ferguson is the norm. What happened in Minneapolis is the exception.

I am surely wasting my effort here – for black lives do not matter to the vast majority of the self-satisfied liberals and radicals who have been marching in our streets, and I doubt that they ever will. What we have witnessed is not an upsurge in the desire for justice. What we have watched is a display of childish self-indulgence on the part of people who want to be seen as just.

Published in Policing
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  1. Mike Rapkoch Member
    Mike Rapkoch
    @MikeRapkoch

    Brilliant Professor.

    • #1
  2. Giulietta Inactive
    Giulietta
    @giuliettachicago

    I’m entirely in agreement.

    I am also dismayed by the total lack of interest by all of the BLM-afffiliates to speak about any of the real issues facing the black community- namely, the absence of black men at the helm of the families. It’s not merely not having a father that is detrimental to a young person, but growing up in a community where they don’t see anyone else having fathers or healthy parental relationships is equally devastating.

    As with so many topics that changed my thinking, I go back to teaching. During my first year, a group of my HS seniors were chatting on their own while doing their work and a black student mentioned laughingly that she didn’t even know all her half-siblings because there were about 12 of them from different women. It was like a joke, she said, someone would have to introduce them so they’d know they were related. She herself had a half-sibling from her mother. Her peers were Hispanic and many had several siblings. They talked about how they took care of their siblings after school and how regularly they saw their aunts, uncles and grandparents. They were raised by a village in the truest sense. The contrast was striking.

    I don’t wonder BLM doesn’t bring this up. It’s complicated and they can’t really blame it on anyone else.

    • #2
  3. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re # 2

    Giulietta,

    I think they can and should  blame a lot of that on other people. They can and should blame it on the so called War on Poverty and on the people who sold them, and other people, the Sexual Revolution. (Just as COVID-19 has been more lethal to black Americans, the Sexual Revolution was more damaging to black American family structure, especially because of the synergistic effect of that outlook combined with the bizarre incentives of new welfare programs.)

    The thing is, while they can and rightfully should blame a lot of the broken black family structure on other people, they’re still the only people who can fix it. It’s not like anyone else can fix something like that even if they did care. (And I think, more than just not caring, the Left had an interest in undermining black family structure and has an interest in having it remain broken. But I’ll try to keep my paranoid thoughts about that, and about how the ruling Leftist elite might consciously and unconsciously work to keep the black American population in check , through abortion and insufficient police protection, to myself.)

    • #3
  4. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re #3

    I also won’t go on about how the greater illiteracy and innumeracy in the black American population isn’t a problem that will be resolved any time soon because it serves the interests of what that Italian writer calls “the ruling class”.

    • #4
  5. Giulietta Inactive
    Giulietta
    @giuliettachicago

    Ansonia (View Comment):

    Re # 2

    Giulietta,

    I think they can and should blame a lot of that on other people. They can and should blame it on the so called War on Poverty and on the people who sold them, and other people, the Sexual Revolution. (Just as COVID-19 has been more lethal to black Americans, the Sexual Revolution was more damaging to black American family structure, especially because of the synergistic effect of that outlook combined with the bizarre incentives of new welfare programs.)

    The thing is, while they can and rightfully should blame a lot of the broken black family structure on other people, they’re still the only people who can fix it. It’s not like anyone else can fix something like that even if they did care. (And I think, more than just not caring, the Left had an interest in undermining black family structure and has an interest in having it remain broken. But I’ll try to keep my paranoid thoughts about that, and about how the ruling Leftist elite might consciously and unconsciously work to keep the black American population in check , through abortion and insufficient police protection, to myself.)

    Ansonia,

    Really well said.

    While the origins of this mess might be complicated, it is a mess that the black community needs to take the lead in fixing because these are their communities and their families. If the double-punch of COVID and the protests have shown anything at all, it’s as you say- the Left does have a vested interest in keeping these communities broken because they will remain in their control, continuing a decades-long trend which has done nothing to elevate (note: not gentrify) troubled neighborhoods.

    • #5
  6. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Ansonia (View Comment):

    Re # 2

    Giulietta,

    I think they can and should blame a lot of that on other people. They can and should blame it on the so called War on Poverty and on the people who sold them, and other people, the Sexual Revolution. (Just as COVID-19 has been more lethal to black Americans, the Sexual Revolution was more damaging to black American family structure, especially because of the synergistic effect of that outlook combined with the bizarre incentives of new welfare programs.)

    The thing is, while they can and rightfully should blame a lot of the broken black family structure on other people, they’re still the only people who can fix it. It’s not like anyone else can fix something like that even if they did care. (And I think, more than just not caring, the Left had an interest in undermining black family structure and has an interest in having it remain broken. But I’ll try to keep my paranoid thoughts about that, and about how the ruling Leftist elite might consciously and unconsciously work to keep the black American population in check , through abortion and insufficient police protection, to myself.)

    I agree about the terrible effects of welfare, but disagree about blame. The overwhelming majority of black Americans voted for the welfare state.

    • #6
  7. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Giulietta (View Comment):
    While the origins of this mess might be complicated, it is a mess that the black community needs to take the lead in fixing because these are their communities and their families.

    It’s no more the responsibility of black communities than it is the responsibility of white communities.  It’s the responsibility of black individuals.

    • #7
  8. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Paul A. Rahe: We need to keep one thing in mind. Very few black Americans die at the hands of the police. Those African-Americans who are fortunate enough not to have been murdered in the womb are far, far more likely to die at the hands of other black men than at the hands of the police.

    Amen.

    I’d love to ask the rioters, “Why this particular black?”  [George Floyd]  What is so special about his death?  The video?  There are other inflammatory videos out there.  In 2019, there were 9 unarmed blacks killed by police.  Why weren’t there 9 equally violent riots last year?”

    • #8
  9. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    –Annual police-civilian contacts: 375 million

    –2019 fatal shootings by police: 1004 (includes those who were armed)

    –2019 African Americans killed by police: 235

    –2019 unarmed whites shot: 19

    –2019 unarmed African Americans shot: 9

    3% of population, Black males 14-35 

    commit 1/2 of all violent crimes, 1/2 of all murders.

    Blacks committed 433,934 crimes against Whites

    Whites committed 55,685 crimes against Blacks

    According to the most recent study by the Dept. of Justice, although blacks were only about 15% of the population in the 75 largest counties in the U.S., they were charged with 62% of all robberies, 57% of murders, and 45% of assaults.

    In New York City, blacks commit over three quarters of all shootings, though they are only 25% of the city’s population. Whites, by contrast, commit only 2% of all shootings, though they are 34% of the population

    According to the FBI’s 2016 Uniform Crime Report (UCR,) blacks committed 60.1% of all homicides in the US — the vast majority by black males aged 14-35, which is approximately 4% of the US population. The UCR also disclosed that 72% of all robberies in 2016 were committed by blacks.

     

     

    • #9
  10. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    The riots and demonstrations have much more to do with Donald J. Trump than with black people.

    • #10
  11. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re # 6

    I didn’t mean to suggest that black Americans haven’t gotten on board with horrible ideas and plans sold to them by opportunistic and self serving, or ignorant and/or crazy people. Also, because bad education keeps illiteracy and innumeracy higher among them, fewer of them are able to recognize when they’re seeing the consequences of those ideas and plans in the current misery they’re experiencing.

    Not that an occasional 50 dollars from me is anything more than a minute drop in the ocean….but….something I’ve meant to do, and keep forgetting to do, is find out what schools someone I trust—-someone like Ben Carlson or Thomas Sowell or Walter E. Williams—-recommends for donations.

    Getting young black Americans the math and reading skills they need to evaluate the ideas different people are perpetually out to sell them would be a step in the right direction.

    • #11
  12. Lensman Inactive
    Lensman
    @Lensman

    Your last point gets to the foundational problem when you write:

    Let me add one final point. One can argue that a disproportionate number of black men die at the hands of the police only if one bases one’s calculations on the relative size of the black population and not on the relative number of crimes committed by black men. If a radically disproportionate number of criminals are black men, then, if the policing is done properly, the police will be far more likely to have unpleasant encounters with black than with white men – and that is what happens in every tolerably well-run city in the land.

    As Amity Shlaes documents so well in her excellent book, Great Society: A New History, government programs have been a disaster for the social institutions that sustained Black Americans through the Great Depression and the post-WWII era. The result has been a tripling of illegitimate births for black women to 75% of live births. A similar percentage of black males are raised in single parent households. The result has been a failure to socialize so many black males and make them responsible law-abiding adults. The surprise should be how many black males succeed in society despite the bad start in their lives. A few good schools and the U.S. military probably deserve a lot of the credit.

    How do the BLM movement and race warlords like “Bloody” Al Sharpton  address this problem?  They work to make the streets “safe” for the black career criminals who prey upon other blacks with street violence and drug trafficking, (see Chicago, Baltimore,  etc.). The exception was New York City until a left wing Mayor DiBlasio attacked the police department. Just as bad, his attack on charter schools amounted to an attack on black families in the outer boroughs. No surprise this — it advanced the interests of the teachers’ unions over ordinary citizens.

    In the past 25+ years New York City has conducted the perfect experiment with the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations. They resurrected NYC from the dystopian nightmare of the 1970’s and ’80’s. Now Bill DeBlasio and his counterparts in Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland and Chicago are entrenching the forces of chaos. We will see more street crime and ordinary, law abiding blacks will suffer.

     

    • #12
  13. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Kozak (View Comment):

    –Annual police-civilian contacts: 375 million

    –2019 fatal shootings by police: 1004 (includes those who were armed)

    –2019 African Americans killed by police: 235

    –2019 unarmed whites shot: 19

    –2019 unarmed African Americans shot: 9

    3% of population, Black males 14-35

    commit 1/2 of all violent crimes, 1/2 of all murders.

    Blacks committed 433,934 crimes against Whites

    Whites committed 55,685 crimes against Blacks

    According to the most recent study by the Dept. of Justice, although blacks were only about 15% of the population in the 75 largest counties in the U.S., they were charged with 62% of all robberies, 57% of murders, and 45% of assaults.

    In New York City, blacks commit over three quarters of all shootings, though they are only 25% of the city’s population. Whites, by contrast, commit only 2% of all shootings, though they are 34% of the population

    According to the FBI’s 2016 Uniform Crime Report (UCR,) blacks committed 60.1% of all homicides in the US — the vast majority by black males aged 14-35, which is approximately 4% of the US population. The UCR also disclosed that 72% of all robberies in 2016 were committed by blacks.

     

     

    Yea but…without police blacks wouldn’t be charged with any crimes. So there.

    • #13
  14. Richard Fulmer Inactive
    Richard Fulmer
    @RichardFulmer

    Do the lives of the black people who have been killed and who will be killed during the riots matter?

    • #14
  15. Giulietta Inactive
    Giulietta
    @giuliettachicago

    Richard Fulmer (View Comment):

    Do the lives of the black people who have been killed and who will be killed during the riots matter?

    Let’s start with David Dorn as an example of someone killed during the riots. I’m not aware of much coming from left-wing media about him bc their narrative is that the protests were peaceful. Correct me if I’m wrong here, please.

    • #15
  16. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    I envision massive rallies throughout our country carrying huge banners:

                                                                                                          BLACK LIVES MATTER

                                                                                                            DEFUND ABORTION

     

                                                                                                          BLACK LIVES MATTER

                                                                                                            HIRE MORE POLICE

     

    Afterwhich, everyone of all persuasion will drop their signs and hug each other. The immense energy of love will kill not only Wuflu, but all virus throughout the world, with the exception of the Chinese Politburo, or whatever they call it. People everywhere will attend sporting events and the Kansas City Chiefs will win another Super Bowl. 

    I am actually being silly because I am so sick and tired of watching idiocy spread everywhere before my eyes.

    • #16
  17. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Arahant (View Comment):
    Arahant

    The riots and demonstrations have much more to do with Donald J. Trump than with black people.

    The riots have to do with Wokism. Remember that BLM started under Obama. 

    • #17
  18. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    Arahant

    The riots and demonstrations have much more to do with Donald J. Trump than with black people.

    The riots have to do with Wokism. Remember that BLM started under Obama.

    The riots have to do with fueling the necessary racial animosity, or appearance of it, to keep black America voting for Democrats.

    • #18
  19. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Lensman (View Comment):
    We will see more street crime and ordinary, law abiding blacks will suffer.

    Those same ordinary, law-abiding people who keep voting for more of the same?

    • #19
  20. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Lensman (View Comment):
    We will see more street crime and ordinary, law abiding blacks will suffer.

    Those same ordinary, law-abiding people who keep voting for more of the same?

    God provides grace for sinners. Maybe we ought to do the same?

    • #20
  21. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Arahant (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Lensman (View Comment):
    We will see more street crime and ordinary, law abiding blacks will suffer.

    Those same ordinary, law-abiding people who keep voting for more of the same?

    God provides grace for sinners. Maybe we ought to do the same?

    Isn’t that for sinners who repent?

    So, first repent.  Then grace.

    • #21
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