If you ask the wrong question, you will get the wrong answer. Pre-programmed riots are being pushed coast to coast. They put millions – largely minority communities – in fear, destroying businesses, systematically undermining rule of law. The question is why?
The answer requires a deep dive. Emerging is an infrastructure for promoting perpetual riots. Oregon to New York, Minnesota to Illinois, Wisconsin to Michigan, law enforcement contends with a pre-judgment, preemptive condemnation, malign assumptions, and preloaded violence. Why?
Missing is context – yet context is vital. The question is not whether Americans are just people, want accountability for individual bad acts – including when a police officer is responsible for a disproportionate, accidental, or racist act resulting in the death of a black citizen. Americans believe justice should be blind, and Black lives do matter.
The question is not whether individuals err, they do. It is not whether racism persists in some departments, it does. It is not whether racism exists among the population, whether unfairness needs addressing, or whether police must be exemplary. But context is essential, big picture vital. Who is behind these persistent, disruptive, destructive, fundamentally anti-constitutional, anti-American riots?
Start with facts, because – as Ronald Reagan used to say – “facts are stubborn things.” In 2019, America had 228.24 million citizens and .91 million police officers – less than one officer to protect every 250 citizens.
In that year, 910,000 police officers, responding to multiple murders, assaults, abduction, burglaries, robbery, carjacking, stalking, shooting, stabbing, domestic violence, and traffic calls per day responded in a way that ended in shooting death 1,054 times.
Look closely at this number. The Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that 61 percent of Americans called police at least once. If 61 percent of citizens dialed for help, some 139,226,400 citizens had police contact. Most situations involved crimes, yet the ratio of shooting death to contact was roughly one in 132,093.
What is more, blacks and whites called police in near-identical numbers, so black citizens do not fear the police more than whites, and both fear criminals more than the police. Indeed, crime numbers tend to be higher in urban areas with dense minority populations, possibly elevating the value of police – especially during violent riots.
Another inconvenient fact – police departments in predominantly minority cities have proportionately higher minority numbers, thus the idea that “police” are white, victims not, is not correct. For example, more than 43.4 percent of Los Angeles’ police force is Hispanic, 11.6 percent black (above population share), 7.1 percent Asian, only 35.4 percent white.
Similarly, in Washington DC, 59.3 percent of police are black (10 percent above population share), 6.9 percent Hispanic, 2.3 percent Asian, 31.6 percent white (below share). Truth: Police departments more often reflect demography, bounded by race-neutral job requirements. See, e.g., https://www.governing.com/archive/police-department-officer-demographics-minority-representation.html.
More key data: Blacks make up 13 percent of the population yet commit 37 percent of violent crimes. Whites makeup 61 percent of the population, commit 58 percent of violent crimes. See, e.g., https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21.
What does this mean? Several things. On official numbers, violent crimes are recorded by blacks at three times population share, by whites less than population share. What does that mean? While whites overall commit more crime than blacks, blacks have a disproportionately higher likelihood of encountering the police – three times higher – as criminals. That means, the likelihood of death by shooting is made higher, a product of higher criminal encounters. This fact is often ignored.
Also ignored: White criminals are killed by police in numbers rivaling black criminals, more than 500 white criminals in 2020-2021. Whether the officer was white, black, Hispanic, or Asian, no parallel riots. Notably, too, those who riot – in places like Portland, Oregon – are disproportionately not black. Why? See, e.g., https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-over-500-white-people-have-been-killed-by-cops-since-2020-there-has-been-no-rioting-over-those-deaths; https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-cop-black-lives-matter-protesters-fewer-minorities-than-police.
Last sad fact: Black-on-black violence dwarfs white-on-black, police-on-black, white-on-white, and any other demographic comparisons. This tells us the issue is not the police. Despite increasing diversity in the black population, socio-cultural issues persist, rooted in culture, education, opportunities, and perceptions. Anti-police riots are a deflection. See, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/02/22/5-facts-about-blacks-in-the-u-s/; https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/the-collapse-marriage-and-the-rise-welfare-dependence.
But get to the guts of the problem – an emerging culture of perpetual riots, pushed with advance planning, mock spontaneity, lofted as racial equality – yet systematically destroying minority neighborhoods, businesses, opportunities, and personal security.
Who is behind these riots? That is the question. The answer must, in some ways, come from the process of elimination. Police are not promoting these riots. Right wing groups are not promoting them. Responsible minorities, civil rights, and legal leaders are not pushing violence. Quite the reverse: They see the damage being done.
Revealing, the Biden-Harris Administration, leftist Democrats, and media are ignoring the riot culture. This could be cowardice, ignorance, or complicity. What we know is that these “perpetual riots” are not being confronted by national leaders, except Republicans, law enforcement, and discomfited minority and majority citizens.
Bottom line: The radical left is creating a riot planning infrastructure, focused on persistent disruption, not materially advancing racial equality, dialogue, or thoughtful problem-solving. They are not focused on leading facts, context, or listening. Americans chiefly want a chance for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” a chance to get along. The left aims for the opposite agenda, systematic disrespect for the law. See, e.g., https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2020/06/04/the-real-history-of-antifa/; https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2020/09/30/antifa-marxism-biden-n261030; http://chinascope.org/archives/24225?doing_wp_cron=1598938447.1287479400634765625000.
Where does this come from? Marxist doctrine. We need to stop being “woke,” and wake up, understand the motivation for domestic violence, start thinking harder about the nation’s future, basic facts, preserving a peaceful Republic. If this sounds serious, it is. We must ask the right questions, pay attention to facts, abide the real answers.