Biased Bureaucrats, Gullible Journalists, and Dylann Roof

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has made a brazen, deceptive effort to downplay black-on-white crime–and bonehead journalists at the Longview News-Journal in Texas fell for it.

Lynn Langton of the Bureau of Justice Statistics was trying to explain away statistics we have been reporting: That of the 520,000 black/white interracial crimes of violence attempted and committed in 2008, blacks committed 83 percent–429,000–of them. And given that the bureau lumps most Hispanics in with whites, it meant that a black (blacks were 12.9 percent of the population) was 29.4 times more likely to commit violence against a “white” (79.8 percent of the population) than the other way around.

This is too much truth for Americans to handle, so Miss Langton provided the official government slant. “A similar percentage of whites experienced violence from blacks as blacks experienced from whites,” she explained. That sure makes it sound as though whites attack blacks about as often as blacks attack whites, doesn’t it? Black-on-white crime must not be a problem after all.

What Miss Langton said is actually true: In 2008, there were 2,788,600 violent acts against whites, and blacks committed 15.4 percent of them. There were 570,550 violent acts against blacks, and whites committed 15.9 percent of them. The numbers are here, in Table 42.

How can we and Miss Langton both be right? Consider this example: Say, someone tells you that “a similar percentage of cats experienced violence from dogs as dogs experienced from cats,” which is what Miss Langton says about black/white violence. It sounds like dogs and cats are equally guilty of inter-species violence–but that would be true only if there were an equal number of cats and dogs.

Let’s imagine that there are 600 cats but only six dogs, and that the “similar percentage” is 50 percent. In other words, half of each group is attacked by the other group. That would mean 300 dog-on-cat attacks but only three cat-on-dog attacks. Clearly, there is an epidemic of dog-on-cat violence.

It would be accurate to say that “a similar percentage of cats experienced violence from dogs as dogs experienced from cats,” but it would be much more realistic to say that of the 303 (300 plus 3) acts of cat/dog violence, dogs attacked cats 99 percent (300/303) of the time. It would be an obvious cover-up to spout baloney about “similar percentages.” But that’s the way Miss Langton treats interracial crime.

It reminds me of an old story from the Cold War era. The Soviets and the Americans had an automobile race, and the Soviets lost. Pravda reported the news with the headline, “Our driver finished second and the American came in next to last.” Factually true, but deliberately misleading.

In his statement, Dylann Roof says that when he started searching the Internet, he was astonished to discover that there is so much black-on-white crime. We have said all along that he was astonished only because the mainstream media refuse to talk about it. This incident proves how right we were. The News-Journal wrote about black-on-white crime only because I told them about it in an interview.

But publishing the truth made them so uncomfortable they rushed over the next day to the BJS to get the right spin, and dutifully published the crude, Pravda-like white-wash Miss Langton provided them. I can’t decide which is worse: BJS’s blatant attempt to sweep the facts under the rug or the News-Journal’s stupidity–or complicity–in publishing it.

We don’t know for sure why Dylann Roof went on his murderous rampage. But we do know that it had something to do with finding out that we don’t get the full story on race.

What if things were different? What if black-on-white crime were widely recognized as a big problem? What if the president agonized about it, and bureaucrats and academics looked for ways to stop it? What if the media vigorously reported it, and chided blacks about it the way they chide whites about slavery–which ended 150 year ago?

Is it possible that Dylann Roof would not have been so alienated from America? Is it possible that he might have had a little more faith that things might turn out right in the end? Is it possible that those nine black churchgoers would still be alive?

I don’t know. But I do know that what we got from the BJS is miserable, deceptive nonsense about “similar percentages,” and the media bought it.