This is not an “either or” scenario. We can and must address community violence and police brutality at the same time as both are issues of great importance.
We should not be persuaded that we have to quiet down about police brutality because we have an ongoing issue with so-called 'Black on Black' crime. The presence of one issue does not disqualify us addressing the severity of the other.
Let’s also be careful with the alarmist narrative about community violence as if Black people are the only ones killing their own kind. Violence is generally committed against someone by someone of the same racial class.
For example, in 2018 of 3,315 white murder victims, 2,677 white perpetrators were identified, roughly 81%. In the same year, of 2,925 Black murder victims, 2,6000 perpetrators were black, roughly 89%. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls.
This does not mean that we give our own community violence a pass-it is never acceptable. But we do need perspective on the issue.
Regarding police interactions, statistics show that Black people have more fatal interactions with law enforcement, although accounting for only 13% of the population.
“The rate of fatal police shootings in the United States shows large differences based on ethnicity. Among Black Americans, the rate of fatal police shootings between 2015 and June 2020 stood at 31 per million of the population, while for White Americans, the rate stood at 13 fatal police shootings per million of the population.” https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings-rate-ethnicity-us/
There is a general devaluing of Black life conceived at the genesis of this great nation. We do not have to choose which issue to address. Both are of such urgency that they must be confronted now!
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