All Lives Matter

Every day, we as a community hear stories about police brutality, specifically towards blacks in the media to the point where we become desensitized to it. It has been a catalyst to movements like Black Lives Matter and the Colin Kaepernick protests. But are we seeing the whole story when it comes to police brutality?

What we see on TV, is police attacking blacks but in reality, that’s all the media wants us to see. It’s a biased system because minority deaths generate more outrage.

Here are some statistics:

• According to the Washington Post, in 2015, 50% of the victims of fatal police shootings were white while 26% were black.
• In the first 6 months of 2015, it was reported that 1,502 people have been shot and killed by police officers, 732 were white and 381 were black (382 were of other or unknown race).
• FBI data stated that 40% of cop murderers are black and a police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be murdered by a black person than a cop killing an unarmed black person.
• A 2015 study by a University of California at Davis researcher concluded there was “no relationship” between crime rates by race and racial bias in police killings.  

This just goes to show that there are some things that society doesn't hear about and the purpose of this blog post was not to say that more whites are killed or the Black Lives Matter movements doesn't matter, the purpose of this post is to show that all lives matter. Yes, there have been horrific crimes against black people in the news and the officers deserved to be punished but that's not my focus with this.

We have to understand that all races are targets, and the treatment in these situations needs to be better. To be able to change the brutality that's taking place right now, all races, genders, ethnicities, etc., need to come together and work together for the problem to be solved and that's what's important here.

-Riley

Sources:

Bandler, Aaron. "5 Statistics You Need To Know About Cops Killing Blacks." Daily Wire. N.p., 07 July 2016. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

Lowery, Wesley. "Aren't More White People than Black People Killed by Police? Yes, but No." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 11 July 2015. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.