9 unarmed blacks killed by police in 2019.
Sure, they were unarmed, so excessive force was probably used in some of these cases.
But just because excessive force was used, doesn’t mean all or some of them weren’t up to no good.
Of course by definition excessive force is never justified, that’s not my point.
Hypothetical:
Let’s say there exists a city.
In this city there exists two races, reds and greens.
The city managed to miraculously eradicate all racism centuries ago.
The red race has a population of 1 million and the green race 1 million.
Does this mean they have an equal number of unarmed slayings by police?
Not necessarily.
The reds are 10 times more likely to be killed when unarmed by police than the greens.
If there’s no racism, how could this be, happenstance, luck of the draw?
While the reds commit the same amount of felonies as the greens, they commit 10 times more petty crimes.
Because they commit 10 times more petty crimes, this brings them into more contact with police, and while most police are decent, some are psychopaths, some are rookies and some are just incompetent, more likely to use excessive force (in)deliberately, so because they have 10 times more contact with police, they’re 10 times more likely to have excessive forced used against them on occasion, and that’s why reds are 10 times more likely to be killed when unarmed by police than greens.
So that’s my point, blacks commit more felonies, and more petty crimes than whites.
And this may account for all, or most of the disparity.
Of those 9 unarmed killings in 2019, how many of them were completely innocent?
To put it another way, if you shoplifted everyday for years, your odds of having excessive force used against you by police would dramatically rise, doesn’t matter what color you or the police are.
The same is true of a population group, doesn’t matter if they’re white, brown or black, doesn’t matter if they’re Christians, Muslims, Buddhists or scientologists, if they commit 10 times more petty crime (or more unarmed felonies for that matter), they can expect to be slain more often by police.
If you swim in the ocean, you’re more likely to be eaten by a shark, it’s nothing personal.