By Sam Madden
(updated June 25, 2020)
(edited July 1, 2020)
In somewhat of a contrast to my colleague and founder of the Center For Pluralism, Dr. Mike Ghouse of his write-up on this issue, I am going to show another side of the story that many Americans don’t hear about or talk about.
I keep hearing lately on Social Media, even from my friends around the globe about the racism that exists in America. I ask people to stop and think for a second. Is it as bad as people are portraying it to be?
We had our first African American President, (albeit bi-racial and married to an African American Woman), Barack Obama elected in 2008 with about 65.5 Million votes from the public. In 2012 he won re-election with nearly 66 million votes.
I ask how is this possible when only 13% of our Population is African American and we are supposedly such a racist nation?
76.3% of the voters in the 2008 election that put Barack Obama in Office were white.
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2009/04/30/dissecting-the-2008-electorate-most-diverse-in-us-history/
Barack Obama was then re-elected in 2012 by almost 66 million votes.
Now we have a culture here in the United States that is taboo to talk about. Which is the disproportionate amount of crime that is done by just 13% of our Population. Here is what African American Jesse Jackson stated about it.
“. . . We’ve got the power right now to stop killing each other. . . . There is a code of silence, based upon fear. Our silence is a sanctuary for killers and drug dealers. There must be a market revolt. The victim has to rise up.”
“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then (I) look around and see someone white and feel relieved.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. along the same lines stated the following:
“Do you know that Negroes are 10 percent of the population of St. Louis and are responsible for 58% of its crimes? We’ve got to face that. And we’ve got to do something about our moral standards. We know that there are many things wrong in the white world, but there are many things wrong in the black world, too. We can’t keep on blaming the white man. There are things we must do for ourselves.”
(These types of disproportions still exist today).
Now, the saddest part of this, which does not get much media attention is the drive-by shootings of African American Children. It happens almost daily somewhere in this country, sometimes multiple children shot at a time.
These drive-by shootings are done primarily by other African Americans.
Here is what part of what Milwaukee’s Chief of Police Edward Flynn stated:
“Yes I was on my phone, that’s true. I was following the developments of a 5 year old girl sitting on her dad’s lap that was shot in the head in a drive-by shooting.
If some of the people here gave a good goddamn about the victimization of people in this community by crime I would take some of their invective more seriously.
The biggest racial disparity in the City of Milwaukee is getting shot and killed, HELLO!
80% of my homicide victims are African American. 80% of our aggravated assault victims are African American, 80% of our shooting victims that survive their shooting are African American”
Then he goes on, almost in tears about the shooting of this 5 year old girl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7MAO7McNKE
We as a nation must face the fact that approximately 52.7% of all Homicides are committed by a segment of our population that is only 13%. And that same segment youth commit 50% of all violent crimes in the youth category, these figures are from the FBI UCR. (These figures are from 2016, but the FBI UCR does have preliminary figures for 2017, 2018, and 2019).
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21
Now, imagine if that segment of the population was white? Would police fear whites more than other ethnicity’s? Of course. It is just human behavior.
In almost every case of an African American being shot or suffers from police brutality, they are not following the directions of the officer. They are running away, driving 100mph to get away, fighting with the Officer. I wonder how the outcomes would be different if they had followed the Officers orders?
Now police Brutality is not just confined to the African American Community like many of us are led to believe, (which then leads to false perceptions by not only African Americans but a lot of other Americans also).
52% of shooting victims by Police are white. But no one protests over those. No one hears about the senseless killing of Whites. No one hears the horrific stories of the Dylan Noble’s of this country. No one protests over it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/fresno-police-release-body-camera-footage-of-fatal-dylan-noble-shooting/2016/07/14/d1cc3aec-499f-11e6-8dac-0c6e4accc5b1_video.html
Now I have been called out of touch with the African American community and their views. But that is far from the truth. My daughter went to an Elementary School that was only 6% white. So you can gather what kind of neighborhood she grew up in. And yes there were many shootings while I was there. But at the same time, I obviously had many African American friends, and they had the same fears I did. Not because of the police, but because of other African Americans that they didn’t know. I would be outside with some of my neighbors and if we saw someone we didn’t know walking past our houses, we (both whites and African Americans), would question each other, if they knew that person and African Americans that were my neighbors would keep an eye on them, just as much as a white person did.
https://www.publicschoolreview.com/handley-elementary-school-profile/75043?fbclid=IwAR3OCMC4UooMuytOn8_hgDyISpzGS9V9TDx6yXN8InKHcxjW7lYE7EeATvI
I have been to the Southern portion of Dallas, which is primarily black. I have listened to sermons. What I heard was very disturbing. I heard in a sermon from an African American Minister, (who dresses quite well and drives a fancy car), that it’s because of racism that these people continue to live in poverty. But that is far from the truth.
We have African Americans living all though-out Dallas County. Many of them Lawyers, Doctors, Chiefs of Police, Police Officers, Business Executives, Business Owners, etc. I haven’t been to one section of Dallas county that has been purely white, which I have lived in for 36 years.
So this false narrative gets spread.
When my daughter went to modeling school, there was a class of 18, 9 were African American. Two of them went to South Oak Cliff High School, which is 92% African American and is in a high crime portion of the city. I helped those girls when they needed rides, I got to know their parents. One Father stated to me when we were talking about race relations, “It doesn’t exist in our household and if my daughter hears about racist remarks we correct her. We are not living in the 1960’s. If she believes racism is rampant, which it is not, she would not be able to achieve what she did today.”
This was at their graduation ceremony from modeling school.
Another point that people are not aware of is how Russia over the past 4+ years has tried to incite race wars in this country though social media. Anyone following the news on a daily basis knows about this. In fact a Study came out from a major University regarding how this has affected the United States.
“Virtual Hatred How Russia Tried to Start a Race War in the United States”
https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1290&context=mjrl&fbclid=IwAR0lyxb8hPqZJCVDaKJN3MXBaRBDHx_NLXqc-e7S8WnAaOziWUaJy1AXFdM
I will end here. Below you will find from the Violence Policy Center numerous studies regarding the victimization of African Americans. But not from Law Enforcement. The statistics are frightening.
https://vpc.org/revealing-the-impacts-of-gun-violence/black-homicide-victimization/
Sam Madden is a Board Member and Consultant for the Center of Pluralism. He was been working with the Center over three years and has been involved with its Founder for about 8 years. He can be reached at sam@centerforpluralism.com