Rita F. Silva: Real problem is the murder rate among black Americans
The story that has dominated the news for the last few months is the shooting of Michael Brown by a white police officer. A grand jury went through a lengthy process, including hearing more than 60 witnesses, many of whom were black, and concluded that the police officer was justified in the shooting.
How can it be profiling when the incident happened in a mostly black neighborhood? There is little chance of the person who is approached being anything but black. The real problem we have is the high crime rate among blacks. According to the 2014 World Almanac, the black population in this country is 12 percent, but the murder rate among the black population is a bit more than 50 percent. This means that on a per capita bases their murder rate is four times as high as the rest of the population.
Their incarceration rate is twice that of all others. Why doesn’t Al Sharpton and Eric Holder try to do anything about that? What is the cause of these numbers? Is it lack of education, too many single-parent homes, or a lack of jobs? We need to solve the problem instead of throwing gas on the fire.
Rita F. Silva, Los Banos
Editor’s note: According to the most recent FBI statistics 2011, of the 12,664 murder victims nationwide, 6,329 were black.
This story was originally published December 16, 2014 at 12:10 PM with the headline "Rita F. Silva: Real problem is the murder rate among black Americans."