Black on Black Crime: The Myth. A study by the U.S. Department of…
By: Letitia Garred
Tags: BlackLivesMatter, Black On Black Crime, Equality, Bipoc, Culture

During this time of increased racial tension, the opposition will point to other aspects of supposed racial importance that are “overlooked”. The political dog whistle that is Black-on-black crime is an example of this behavior.

Black-on-black crime is a phrase that has been used as long as I can remember to disrupt the conversation and change the narrative from racial bias and discrimination to how blacks are the biggest threat to other blacks. The myth helps to propagate the notion that black people are inherently violent criminals. The most used statistic is that black people make up 13% of the population but 54% of all murders. While technically true, that statistic is misleading. Black people make up 54% of all murder arrests despite being 13% of the population; the data cited does not account for the number convicted of murder.

A study by the U.S. Department of Justice shows that white-on-white crime is comparable to the rate of so called black-on-black crime. From 1980 to 2008, numbers show that murder was intra-racial. Meaning that the murders happened within the same race. In fact, 84% of white victims were killed by a white offender and 93% of black victims were killed by a black offender. If the rate of intra-racial violence is similar in both races, why does no one talk about white-on-white crime?

Also, important to note is Black prisoners convicted of murder are 50% more likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers. One important factor of this phenomenon, is tied to the race of the victim. Those convicted of killing white victims were more likely to be innocent. Though only 15% of murders by black people involve a white victim, 31% exonerated black prisoners were convicted of killing white people.

This is also seen in drug related crimes. The national evidence suggest that Blacks and whites use illegal drugs at the same rate. Despite this, Black people are five times more likely to go to prison for drug possession and based on exonerations, innocent Black people are 12 times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than innocent white people.

From 2009 to 2012 fatalities resulting from lethal force by on-duty law enforcement officers, were 53% white but 32% Black. This means that Blacks, despite being 13% of the population, were disproportionately represented. Blacks are 2.8 times more likely to be killed and more likely to be unarmed than other races. Lethal force deaths increased 45% between 1999 and 2013 with blacks being the highest.

Why are innocent black people convicted at a higher rate than their white counterparts?

One factor contributing to this is unconscious bias. Eye witness testimony is believed to be the most reliable form of evidence during a trial. Yet, studies show that eye witness testimony is unreliable at best. Factors to consider with witness testimony include anxiety and leading questions that can impart bias in our memories. We consider memory to be something of a factual recording of our lives, but this is incorrect. We make “effort after meaning” according to a study done by Bartlett in 1932. By this, Bartlett is saying that we can reshape our memories to fit our understanding of the world, so they match what we know or believe we know about the world.

Image used to test for bias in Allport & Postman, 1947

In a study by Allport & Postman in 1947, participants were asked to recall information about a drawing of a black man and a white man on a train. Pictured here, the white man stands holding a straight razor and pointing at the black man’s chest while the black man has his hands down and appears passive. Participants reported that the black man was holding the razor. This shows that memory is altered by our own bias and is, in part, a reason that innocent black people are convicted of crimes they didn’t commit.

Simple statements of a statistic ignores history and other factors that lead to the criminalization of blacks in America. In 1933, The New Deal was enacted to address the rising need for housing amongst the white middle class. This means that they began to find a way to segregate the housing industry and force blacks into urban housing developments. Accomplished by refusing to insure mortgages in and near Black neighborhoods, Redlining, has had a negative impact on American society as it pertains to race.

Richard Rothstein, author of The Color of Law, believes, “The segregation of our metropolitan areas today leads … to stagnant inequality, because families are much less able to be upwardly mobile when they’re living in segregated neighborhoods where opportunity is absent. If we want greater equality in this society, if we want a lowering of the hostility between police and young African-American men, we need to take steps to desegregate.”

The American Dream is a lie.

America has low social mobility. Meaning an upper limit exists on the mobility of minorities (i.e. blacks and women, etc). This is based on access to well funded schools, low rate of unionization, public health problems, and the size of the income gap.

US Gender Pay Gap, by Race/Ethnicity: In the United States, white males have greater social mobility than women and racial/ethnic minorities.

The justification of redlining was that if blacks bought homes in or near white neighborhoods, the property values would decline. There was no basis for this claim. The opposite proved to be true as blacks were willing to pay more because their housing supply was restricted and did not allow for much choice. The Underwriting Manual of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) stated, “incompatible racial groups should not be permitted to live in the same communites.” Basically, loans to blacks would not be insured.

One specific example of redlining is in Detroit. In 1941, the FHA would not allow building on a housing development to continue unless the developer built a 6-foot-high cement wall to separate his development from nearby black neighborhoods. Without the wall, the area was deemed “hazardous”. Thus, insuring no black person could even walk into that neighborhood. Today this wall, known as the Birwood Wall or the Eight Mile Wall, still stands and The Michigan State Historic Preservation Office is working to get the wall on the National Register of Historic Places and place a historical marker.

In 1968, the Fair Housing Act passed to give Blacks the right to buy homes in white suburbs but by that time the housing values had risen to the point of being unaffordable for blacks. Whites had decades to build equity in their homes and use that equity to secure their wealth by sending their children to college or even by bequeathing wealth to their descendants. An opportunity not afforded to blacks, this meant that the next generation of white people would have a head start due to their family’s status.

“I loved my classes. We were exposed to everything. You know, theater, ballet, listen to different types of music. But at my homeboy’s high school, it’s not like that. They don’t have trips to go see these Broadway plays, and they don’t read the things we are reading, they didn’t know what I was talking about when I was like, yo Shakespeare is dope. They didn’t have the same experiences we had. Then I started thinking… that our school…. that I went to… is mostly for white kids and rich minorities. So I started going, damn man, I would have been a totally different person had I not been exposed to those things”. Tupac Shakur — Lazin (2005)

Redlining is present in our educational system as well. Schools use a child’s address to decide which school they go to. This ignores any risk factors associated within the school district. The government’s practice of rewarding schools producing the better test scores means that schools in need stay woefully underfunded. Often the main concern is getting the child to graduation, with no thought on who or what the child will become upon graduation. This guarantees that children from poverty stricken areas will not have the same opportunities as those in neighborhoods where poverty is less common. The inner city schools are often in need of repair and lacking in basic supplies for students. According to a study by Sackler in 2010, by the time Black children reach 4th grade, 58% are considered functionally illiterate. Children in these areas are destined for failure from the beginning.

Our government’s unwillingness to correct past wrongs means that white people in America have had generations to succeed while black people have encountered road blocks at every turn. Removing monuments to racism and changing the names of products with racist backgrounds is all well and good, but we need action. We need to dismantle this system and reform the justice system that we have in place. Issues such as a lack of educational opportunities, lack of job opportunities, no access to mental health services, and multi-generational poverty are the driving forces behind crime in black communities. These road blocks have been put into place to prevent progress. Progress will only take place if we all stand and fight. Protest, donate, write your elected officials, call out your racist uncle, become anti-racist, and, most important of all, don’t shut up about it. Only then will we be on our way to “all men are created equal”.

Sources Cited:

Allport, Gordon W., and Leo Postman. “The psychology of rumor.” (1947).

Bartlett, F.C. (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Emery, E., 2016. REDLINING AND ITS INFLUENCE ON EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES IN THE SCHOOL SYSTEM: A COLLABORATIVE AUTO-ETHNOGRAPHY. Doctorate. California State University, East Bay.

Gross, S., Possley, M. and Stephens, K., 2017. RACE AND WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES. [ebook] Irvine: NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS. Available at: <http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf> [Accessed 1 July 2020].

Gross, S., Possley, M. and Stephens, K., 2017. RACE AND WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES. [ebook] Irvine: NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS. Available at: <http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf> [Accessed 1 July 2020].

McLeod, S. A. (2018, December 14). Eyewitness testimony. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/eyewitness-testimony.html

NPR, 2020. A ‘Forgotten History’ Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America. [podcast] Fresh Air. Available at: <https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america> [Accessed 1 July 2020].

Sackler, M. (2010). Retrieved from Gravitas Ventures official website: http://www.gravitasventures.com/the-lottery/