Disproving Racism

by Dalton Johnson, Staff Writer

When George Floyd died in May of this year at the hands of police officers, few predicted what the ensuing months held. It is now September and the country is still reeling from the effects of his death. Demonstrations across the country have called for police reform. Police officers across the country have been belittled by these protestors who have called them racist. But do these claims hold up?  

One of the most common arguments made to prove the police are racist is that they are more likely to use their gun against blacks. Multiple studies however, would suggest otherwise. According to a “Des Moines Register” article, a Harvard study was done in 2016 and found that white people are just as likely as black people to be killed by officers. That same “Des Moines Register” article also cited a 2019 study published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” that found no racial biases in police shootings across the country.  

Another argument made against the police is that they arrest blacks at a higher rate than whites. People who support police reform claim that African Americans are disproportionally arrested at higher rates than whites. People who make this argument are likely to cite a “National Association for the Advancement of Colored People”, (NAACP) statistic that finds only 13% of people in the US are black. They assume that because blacks only account for 13% percent of the US population and that they are shown to be arrested at higher rates than whites, the police must be racist.

Once again, this argument falls flat. In the book, “The Color of Crime,” that was published in 2016, the author, Edward S. Rubenstein, discusses various studies and crime rates in several major US cities. These studies found that blacks commit crimes at higher rates than any other race; most of which are violent crimes like murder.

Furthermore, according to a “National Equity Atlas” study done in 2017, blacks account for 26% of people who live in low income neighborhoods while whites only account for 5%. This is important because according to the US Housing and Urban Develop (HUD) in 2016, many studies have shown that lower income neighborhoods have higher rates of crime. In other words, because a lot of African Americans live in low income neighborhoods as compared to whites, blacks are more likely to commit crimes and be arrested. Therefore, it would make sense that African Americans are arrested disproportionally more than whites. More blacks live in low income neighborhoods and are involved in more crimes since they live in low income neighborhoods.

Although on the surface it looks like police target blacks, the evidence and statistics indicate otherwise. Maybe instead of focusing on how racist the police are, people who want to help the black community should focus on things that would better help the African American community.