Review Essay (“On Race, Cops. Fake News, and the True Inconvenient Truth: An Anti-Racist Manifesto.”)

John F. Harris
Attorney-at-Law, CA
Second Reviewer

I have read, re-read and read again this article; hereafter called the “Article.” The author concludes that there is no systemic racism by whites in America and that blacks are underrepresented in police killings when accurate statistics and analysis are considered.

In the “Article, the author used hard numbers and statistics to support his conclusions which clearly are out of line with current political correctness as put forth by the mainstream media and one political party. 

I, like anyone in their right mind today, am somewhat reluctant to comment favorably on the author’s conclusions that there is no systemic racism in America and that blacks are underrepresented in police killings. People who say such things today are labeled “racists” and lose business and employment opportunities and careers and find their businesses boycotted and are banned from social media and have their reputations smeared and are frequently subjected to threats of violence and actual violence.

Today’s so-called liberals, who are often anything but, claim that they support diversity. Apparently, this means they want to be with people who do not look like them so long as they think exactly like them.

Let’s review some of the facts in the Article. The author says that out of 10 million arrests per year there are about 1000 fatal police shootings and about 40 of the decedents were unarmed and 10 of those were black. He says that while it is widely reported that blacks are three to four times more likely to be shot by U.S. police, that is only in proportion to the general population which is not who the police have to deal with. He points out that 90% of all interracial violent crime is black on white. The black on white murder rate is 2 ½ to one. The black on white assault and battery rate is at least 10 to one.

I tried to fact check the author’s statistics. It is difficult to research. One must wonder if even the Department of Justice and FBI hold back statistics that do not support the popular narrative. Based on the numbers I studied, I could find no fault with the author’s numbers in the Article.

My own research shows the author may have left out a lot of available statistics that support his hypothesis. In 2018, black on white violent crimes numbered 548,000 to 60,000 white on black. Blacks who are 13.4% of the population committed 52% of the homicides (55 % in 2019) and constituted 27 % of total arrests and 36% of all arrests for violent crime.

These above figures are misleading when you consider that most crime is committed by males and if half of black people are males, they are only 6.7 % of the U.S. population. If most crime is committed by young black males, who are only about 1/3 of the male blacks, then probably the young black males constitute between 2% and 3% of the population and commit an incredibly disproportionate percentage of all crime.  That is the segment of society with whom the police must deal all out of proportion to their percentage of the population in general.

Viewed in that accurate light, it would be foolish for law officers not to be especially aware of young black males when patrolling or responding to crime scenes. That would cause more stops of blacks and possibly more arrests.  If black males commit such a disproportionate percentage of crime and particularly violent crime, it is easily understandable that they suffer a numerically disproportionate number of police shootings, but according to the author and my own research, not nearly as many young black males are shot by police as violent crime statistics would justify. I believe a lot of this has to do with the Divider in Chief, former president Barack Obama, who invariably jumped on the side of anyone black who was arrested and especially those killed. Being the darling of a one-sided media, his leadership has created acceptance of the false narrative by which he lived and governed.

Here are just a few examples. It started with a black Harvard professor Gates who was reported to the police by neighbors when seen trying to break into his own home. When officers arrived, this arrogant individual accused the officers of racial profiling and asked if they knew how many degrees he had and said, “I am a professor at Harvard, Can you even spell Harvard?” The President started 8 years of the myth that police were mostly racist.

Next came George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin who attacked Zimmerman and was pounding his head on the pavement. Martin was a dope dealing thief, apparent burglar, truant and bully. Obama immediately said that “If I had a son, he’d probably look like Trayvon.” We all remember Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. He was pulled over shortly after robbing a convenience store and tried to grab the officer’s gun. Yet Obama said this somehow “exposed the racial divide in the American Justice System that stains the heart of black children.” He fostered the myth that Brown had his hands up and said,” Don’t shoot.,” another proven lie. Of course, Obama sent representatives to the funeral of this criminal thug but not to the funerals of fallen war heroes and police. Obama’s outright lies and jumping to clearly unjustified assumption have played a large part inciting riots, destruction of billions of dollars of property and many deaths.

The mainstream media and the Democratic leaders fostered last summer’s riots and looting and arson and destruction of businesses and police stations and police cars with police in them. Candidate Biden’s party only modified its approach when his advisors found that the riots were no longer helping him in the polls. But they remained “mostly peaceful” in the media.

Using only raw numbers to conclude racial discrimination from the fact that percentagewise more blacks are stopped by the police, arrested, and imprisoned or refused mortgage loans is, as Thomas Sowell points out, comparable to complaining that young black males are called for fouls by National Basketball Association referees all out of proportion to their 13% of the population. (Voegleli, 2018).

I first wrote about racism and civil rights back in 1964 when as a second-year law student I published an article in support of the constitutionality of the then pending Civil Rights Act of 1964 which introduced affirmative action as a policy of the United States. I was solidly in favor of affirmative action believing that someone who is shackled deserves a head start in what until then was clearly an unequal race. My Article won the coveted award of the first prize in Dean’s Essay on Constitutional Law contest and I was the only undergraduate to receive an award at the Loyola Law School Graduation that year.

Thereafter I campaigned for black politicians and hired blacks and other minorities when it was not career enhancing to do so in the white neighborhoods where I had my offices. Since then, I remain proud of my campaigning for liberal and black politicians. I remain a liberal about civil rights in the sense of liberals like John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King, all of whom would be arch conservative by today’s liberal standards. Does anyone really think the Martin Luther King would support today’s violent riots with their murders and looting and arson?

I have concluded that Affirmative Action was a noble experiment that failed miserably. The good intentions with which it started, have morphed into a widespread feeling of victimization by black Americans and a new form of racism against whites and Asians. I believe that all forms of racism are wrong and that includes Affirmative Action. 

While it is hard to even imagine, people who say that “All lives matter.” are now deemed racists for saying so.

Fortunately, in my personal experience, I find that white racism is almost nonexistent except among numerically insignificant white supremacists and a few other fringe lunatics.

As Thomas Sowell wrote, “(R)acism is not dead, but it is on life support- kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others.” (Twitter, June 3, 2020).  Sowell also told “Life Liberty and Levin” on Fox News, July 12, 2020, that “systemic racism” has “no meaning” and reminds him of Nazi Germany and Nazi propaganda tactics. The lie is accepted if it is “repeated long enough and loud enough.” (Fox News, July 12, 2020)

It is most frightening that today the nonexistent white racism and privilege charge is supported by the people who have thrived the most under our system which they try to cancel and denounce.  The charge is led by communist terrorist organizations like Black Lives Matter whose founders and leaders brag about being Communists while personally owning an increasing number of homes and mansions. They in turn are supported by the Democratic National Committee and their supporting media both mainstream and social who get many people of good faith to believe the big lie.

In summary, I can only conclude that the author of the Article is correct in concluding that there is no systemic racism among whites and that police killing of blacks is disproportionately low when matched against their proportion of their criminal activity and violent crime in general and homicides. Only the current censorship of any truth that is inconvenient to false teachings prevents the author’s accurate facts and conclusions from being widely or universally accepted.

Reference 

Voegeli, William, “Thomas Sowell’s inconvenient truths: hard questions,” Claremont Review of Books, Vol. XVIII 3, Summer 2018.