It’s always an interesting thing, to see how people respond to the reasonable assertions of others.

For example. What do you think when you see the expression, “black on black crime”?

As for me, I think about people of primarily African heritage, being killed, harmed, robbed or otherwise treated in a criminal fashion, by other people of also mostly African family.

What I don’t think is, “Why doesn’t anyone use the expression, ‘white on white crime’?”

You might ask why I don’t think that. Let me help you to understand. To begin with, I would have no problem with you using that expression. It’s equally valid, so your using it is not problematic to me.

It—like “black on black crime”—describes a statistical criminal issue that can and probably should, be addressed.

Your next question might be, “So why don’t you use it?” And this would be a more reasonable question. Let me help you to grasp the reason.

You see, there has been a perceived problem for a period of many years. The problem is the problem’s not a problem—or at least not one of a great deal of substance.

That problem could be termed, “police violence against blacks.”

For some time, it has been presumed (lacking facts to back it up) that, U.S. residents of African lineage are being unfairly or improperly targeted by law enforcement. Unfortunately for the folks pushing that narrative, the facts don’t back up that assertion.

There are those who argue that I’m wrong in that regard, and their assertion would be understandable if the final argument was reasonable.

What’s the final argument? That people whose families are African in origin are more likely to find themselves being arrested, tried or convicted strictly on the basis of their “race.”

Considering the level of crime committed by blacks in and outside of the African American community in the United States, we would be in utter chaos if folks not of African family, were to do what is happening within that group (the black criminal element) and appropriate policing were not occurring there as well.

Many of the neighborhoods in which live predominantly “black” citizens—even with a strong police presence—are not places even well-mannered black folks want to find themselves.

In saying this, I’m saying two important things. The first is that there are (certainly a very large number of) well mannered, reasonable, friendly, hard-working, smart, black folks.

You should understand that I don’t care that I don’t like the label “black” any more than I like the label “white.” They’re horrible misrepresentations of the people about whom they speak, and not terms that should be applied. That being said, it’s hard to find “terser” descriptives, so I’ll stick with their usage here.

The second thing I’m saying is, there’s an awful lot of crime in many (certainly not all) neighborhoods that are predominantly black. Even in those neighborhoods, there are folks who, just like me, want to be left alone, or not bothered or affected by that crime. Nonetheless, they are—they virtually cannot avoid being so.

The result is, people in these largely black neighborhoods are often crying out for intervention on the part of the “local constabulary.” And that’s knowing full well they’re likely to be, “caught up in the crossfire.”

The choice is to have running gun battles, among other violence, in their streets.

I’ve already made this point, but I feel obliged to make it again now. Many of the people affected by black on black crime, both inside and outside of neighborhoods primarily populated with black folks, are good, honest, hard working people. They go to a job every day, they work hard, and they relish the time with children and other relatives just like anyone and everyone else does.

The point of all of this this though, is to make it plain that, by comparison to the number, say, of deaths of even armed blacks by police (of any racial group), the number is exceptionally small when put next to the number of black folks murdered by other blacks not in law enforcement.

I want to make it plain that I didn’t make an “apples-to-apples” comparison there. I compared deaths (reasonable and unreasonable) by law enforcement personnel against blacks, to murders (deaths that can be reasonably “charged as” crimes) of blacks by other non-police blacks. It’s more than proper to say even considering these numbers, you’d be better off dealing with a police officer, than another black person (usually man, since more black men commit crimes than black women by a large margin).

And the law abiding, reasonable, hard working black folks (a very large number of people), must deal with that every bit as much as (if not more than), those who are equally nefarious to the ones doing the murdering.

Now I want to be fair here. I have said, as have a good many people, that black on black crime is not as serious as a number of other things that are taking both black lives, and all lives.

Abortion is high on the list, as are things like cancer, and heart disease.

That being said though, the folks who talk about black on black crime when you talk about police brutality are at least trying to make a point—that more black folks are murdered in violence by other blacks who are not police far and away, than those killed by police of any race.

I say “at least,” because many are genuinely concerned about the level of black on black crime. They would love to see it substantially reduced through reasonable means.

So, when you ask the questions, “Are you ‘diverting’ when you use the expression ‘black on black crime?’” and “Why don’t you use the term ‘white on white crime?’” I hope I’ve helped you to understand.

To be clear, I’m not saying there’s no issue with unwarranted police action. I’m not saying, “All police are good.” And I’m not trying to indicate, “There are no racist law enforcement officers.”

There are issues in every walk of life and interaction type. That’s not bound to change. It’s all about the numbers. That’s where the problem exists. More people die of violent black on black crime by far, than die in police violence of any type. That is why people talk about black on black crime.

As usual, may your time be good, and thanks for reading.