Mayor Bernard C. ‘Jack’ Young of Baltimore made the mistake of shining light on an actual issue this week, sharing a Facebook post that states, ‘If black lives really mattered, they’d stop shooting each other…94 percent of all blacks shot are shot by blacks.’ Cockburn admires his courage for sharing a contrarian view on race. Radical activists, unsurprisingly, do not
‘As the mayor who represents all of Baltimore, he has to be very careful of the imagery that he portrays,’ Revd Al Hathway of Union Baptist Church told FOX45. ‘I think he should look at the positives against the negatives.’
Young, who became mayor after Catherine Pugh resigned in disgrace, has criticized Black Lives Matter before, telling FOX45 a few weeks ago that ‘We’re talking about Black Lives Matter? Then we need to act like the black murders in the city matter as well.’ There have been 198 reported homicides in Baltimore City this year alone — a negative that’s certainly worth looking at.
Young lost reelection earlier this year in a crowded Democratic primary that was won by current Baltimore City Council president Brandon Scott. The council, led by Scott, recently cut $22 million from the Baltimore City Police Department in response to national efforts to defund the police.
Cockburn doesn’t claim to know the solution to halting violent crime, but something tells him defunding police won’t help. Law enforcement is involved in roughly five percent of black homicides. Police killings of unarmed African Americans not fleeing the scene totaled five in 2019.
As the Baltimore mayor now knows, you must be careful when sharing data that doesn’t fit the narrative. Motives have no relevance today — compliance is required.
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Jason Riley puts it best in the Wall Street Journal:
‘Empirical studies have found no racial bias in police use of deadly force, and that the racial disparities that do exist stem from racial differences in criminal behavior. The problem isn’t a shortage of data but a race-based narrative that is immune to any data that challenge it.’
Does the mayor know Jack?
