With the increase of publicized police shootings this year and the strong response from groups such as the Black Lives Matter movement, comes a line I’ve heard all too many times this year:
“But what about black on black crime?” “But what about Chicago?”
It’s something I’ve heard from numerous people: Those who hide behind egg avis on Twitter, those old friends from high school on Facebook, even rappers such as Kevin Gates (who literally raps about killing other people constantly and has two mixtapes named “Murder for Hire” but you know, that’s another article for another day). Out of the kindness of my little ole’ heart (and so I can link this article the next time an egg avi tries to come into my Twitter mentions spouting racist foolishness), I’ve decided to break down the fallacy of black on black crime.
Let’s start with the main fact: most violence and crime has to do with proximity. Large majorities of people work, marry, and live near people of their same race. That means the majority of whites are killed by whites, the majority of blacks are killed my blacks, the majority of Latinos are killed by Latinos, and so forth. You never hear the phrase “white on white crime” because it sounds ridiculous. Could you imagine the outrage if the Columbine Massacre, or the Oklahoma City Bombing, or even the Aurora Movie Theater shooting was referred to as “white on white crime”? The phrase “black on black crime” is meant to imply that black people are inherently violent, when that’s not that case at all. Am I saying intra-racial violence is okay? Of course I’m not. I’m saying violence happens between all races and to single out the violence between black people to justify police brutality is foolish. Next time, please just admit you’re a racist instead of trying to derail the Black Lives Matter movement with empty claims of nonexistentent “racially motivated” “black on black” “crime”.
Black on black crime is just plain ol’ crime. My personal studies show that people who say “b-b-b-but what about black on black crime” truly don’t care about intra-racial violence in black communities at all, because if they did they’d already know about the numerous organizations that have been in place to fight against the violence. Groups like Stop the Violence, Cure Violence, and Hands Up United work to find the sources of violence in communities and help the people in these places live safely.
Am I pro-crime and violence? Obviously not. Unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world, and these events do happen; however, it is not an excuse for police to use excessive, and increasingly deadly force against citizens. Just like we can walk and talk at the same time, we can address police brutality and violence in communities at the same time without neglecting either problem.