re: In Houston, more whites and hispanics are killed by police than black people...

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However, I put little weight in that stat as blacks make up a smaller percentage of the overall US population compared to whites and latinos. It's easy to cherry-pick the statistics to paint the story that you want.

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Now it's certainly true that black people represent only 12-13% of the United States population and are twice that rate in the police killings, but according to FBI data in 2014 4,224 black men were arrested and charged with murder in this country. Meanwhile 3,807 white and Hispanic men were arrested and charged with murder. This means blacks were arrested for 51.3% of all murders in 2014 despite the fact that they represent just 12% of the population. Given that the black arrest rate for violent crime also exceeds 27%, black people are actually getting shot and killed less often when they're arrested than white and Hispanic people are.

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So why are we focusing on such a tiny subset of police shootings? I suspect it's because the media has utilized black fear of white racism to increase TV ratings. That same black fear provokes an equally virulent response from white America, which accuses black America of blaming everything on racism. So we swing from one hashtag extreme to the other #blacklivesmatter to #alllivesmatter without most people ever taking the time to examine actual police shooting data.

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