Permissible Generalizations, Part I

It has been a difficult week for our country. A black man, Alton Sterling, was killed by police in Louisiana. Another black man, Philando Castile, was killed by a police officer in Minnesota. Then, five police officers (Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael Smith, Brent Thompson and Patrick Zamarripa) were murdered and another seven wounded in an ambush in Dallas, Texas. There is no doubt that race relations have worsened during the term of our first black President. It behooves us to see if his words help or hurt.

As a reminder, President Obama has not been particularly helpful with regards to race relations in the past. He jumped to conclusions with regards to the arrest of black Professor Gates by calling the Cambridge Police officers stupid, before knowing any of the facts. He told us that if he had a son he would look like Trayvon (Martin), which was totally unrelated to whether George Zimmerman acted legally or not. It was found he did act legally. Obama immediately dispatched the DOJ to Ferguson, Missouri after the police killing of Michael Brown, essentially condemning the entire Ferguson Police Department.

Now, with the sad and unfortunate killings of Mr. Sterling and Mr. Castile, Obama said this: "These are not isolated incidents...They're symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system." Is that a helpful generalization? Would it not be more helpful to say that he looks forward to a complete investigation of all shootings by local and state authorities; and, if necessary, he will ask the DOJ to investigate. Would it not be better to say that when anyone is stopped by the police they should comply with officers' orders. Doesn't Obama's comment essentially say that the entire criminal justice system is biased against blacks? It is untrue; and how is that possibly helpful?

Disappointingly, the Democratic Governor of Minnesota, Mark Dayton, was no better in his comments. Said Dayton: "Would this have happened if the passengers, the drivers were white? I don't think it would have." Thank you, Governor, for essentially claiming that all police officers are racist. Democrats like Obama and Dayton are doing nothing other than pandering to part of their political base, blacks. They are not trying to be unifying voices, and they are not helping matters by saying police and the criminal justice system are against blacks.

The New York Times editorial board was also quick to attack the police. In their 7/9/16 editorial, they state that the murderer of the five Dallas police officers committed his crime to "avenge the "innocent" deaths of black citizens in police encounters elsewhere." I'm confused. Does "innocent" deaths mean that the police acted wrongfully? Don't we need to know all the facts first, before making that generalization?

The Times also told us in their 7/8/16 editorial that police have now killed 123 blacks in the US this year. What generalization are we supposed to make from that single statistic? Here's a statistic: 509 people have been killed by police this year. 238 were white. 79 were Hispanic. The rest were unknown/other. 484 of those killed were male, only 25 were female. Clearly, the police are unjustly targeting males. Or, maybe, females are far less likely to commit crimes, and far more likely to comply with orders from police. Just maybe.

Here are some more statistics. In the first half of this year alone, in the single city of Chicago, 263 blacks have been murdered. We can extrapolate from past statistics that most of the murderers were also black. The NY Daily News reported on 11/19/13 that from January through June, 2013, blacks made up 63.8% of murder victims in Chicago; and blacks made up 70% of the perpetrators. Another site provided similar statistics for the year 2011 - blacks were 75.3% of the murder victims and 71.3% of the perpetrators. What generalization can Obama make from those numbers? None, because he would rather not discuss it.