For a split second, we all agreed on something.  George Floyd was needlessly killed.

Then the media made it about race, and look at us now.

Feelings are quite often misleading.

Here are some indisputable facts:

In 2016, black people were killed by white people 243 times, while white people were killed by black people 533 times.

That’s over twice as many. 

Black people make up 12.6% of the population in the United States.

In 2017, black people were responsible for over half (53.1%) of the murder/manslaughter arrests, 28.7% of the rape arrests, 54.3% of the robbery arrests, 43.9% of the carrying a weapon arrests, and 33.5% of the aggravated assault arrests.

In 2016, 6676 murders/manslaughters were reported to the FBI.  3156 of were committed by black offenders.  That’s over 47% of all violent deaths in 2016 committed by black people and they make up only 12.6% of the population.

In 2019, 235 black people were killed by police, while 370 white people were killed by police. 

The evidence would seem to suggest that white people are killed more in pretty much every category.

America is not the America of the pre-civil rights movement.  We as a whole are less racist than our ancestors.  Racism is alive in America, though.  From white supremacists to rioters that admit it quite openly, we have a long way to go.

Despite this, I contest that this current crisis isn’t about race at all.  It’s about power.  A government only has power over a divided nation.  If they can keep us at each other’s throats, we’ll never see them for what they are – corrupt, incompetent and the most wasteful of us all.