Five Facts About ‘Black Oppression’ Colin Kaepernick Needs to Know

Embattled San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has caused quite the controversy in his protest against police brutality, choosing for the second weekend in a row not to stand during the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

“Police brutality is a huge thing that needs to be addressed,” Kaepernick told the press when asked why he is protesting. “People are dying in vain because this country isn’t holding their end of the bargain up.”

The 28-year-old’s motives have been questioned, increasingly so after he was seen wearing a Fidel Castro T-shirt and “pig cop” socks at 49ers events.

Whatever his reasons, a constructive conversation aimed at addressing black oppression or police brutality will not transpire with an apparent communist-sympathizer who proudly wears socks that depict police as pigs.

To find the greatly perpetuated narrative of “black oppression in America,” Kaepernick need only look in the mirror. Instead of sitting, he should stand and stalk America’s inner-city streets, where communities are consumed by crime.

Below are five facts about black oppression that Kaepernick should know.

FACT 1. White police officers killed “unarmed black men” less than four percent of the time in 2015:

A year-long Washington Post investigation revealed that “white police officers killing unarmed black men — represent less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings.”

Indeed, the high-profile deaths of black people at the hands of white cops that spark so much media hype and activist attention were often the result of police defending themselves from deadly attacks by violent assailants.

More than 80 percent of the victims were armed with objects that could cause death or severe injuries, ranging from knives to machetes to automobiles.

An excess of 75 percent of the fatal police-involved shootings were in direct response to a violent suspect wielding a deadly weapon, according to the Post’s report.

FACT 2. It would take cops 40 years to kill as many black men as have died at the hands of other black men in 2012 alone:

University of Toledo criminologist Dr. Richard R. Johnson examined the latest crime data from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports and Centers for Disease Control and found that an average of 4,472 black men were killed by other black men annually between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2012.

Professor Johnson’s research further concluded that 112 black men died from both justified and unjustified police-involved killings annually during this same period.

FACT 3. From 1980 through 2008, 93 percent of black victims were killed by blacks killers — not police:

There is no epidemic of police killing black people in America. It simply is not true.

And according to the FBI’s latest annual “Crime in the United States” report, 90 percent of black Americans killed in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 were killed by blacks.

FACT 4. Black people (mostly men) commit a grossly disproportionate amount of crime:

There are five times fewer black people than white people in America, yet they consistently carry out a larger share of the crimes.

DOJ statistics show that between 1980 and 2008, black people committed 52 percent of homicides. And in 2013, black criminals committed 38 percent of the murders. Whites accounted for 31 percent.

FACT 5. Black people represented more than 80 percent of the violent crimes in Oakland, California:

While black people in Oakland were just 28 percent of the population in 2013, they were “83 percent of the 12,161 homicide suspects, attempted homicides, robberies, assaults with firearms and assaults with weapons other than firearms, according to crime suspect data provided by the Oakland Police Department,” a report in the San Francisco Chronicle indicated. 

The crime statistics come from “descriptions provided by crime victims and witnesses,” the Chronicle said:

— 8,228 of the 9,491 robbery suspects last year were described as African American.

— 844 of the 1,091 firearms assault suspects were described as African American.

— 1,034 of 1,439 people suspected in assaults with weapons other than firearms were said to be African American.

— 27 of the 32 suspects arrested last year for homicides were African American.

— 41 of 79 suspects in unsolved homicides last year were described as African American. Thirty were listed as “unknown” race or ethnicity.

Oakland, California, is about 12 miles from San Francisco, the city Kaepernick says “has become a home.”

Kaepernick can sit or he can stand and confront this self-inflicted horror show and black-on-black maimings just miles outside of his own backyard.

What has become abundantly clear is that lawbreaking black Americans, particularly young black males, put themselves in close proximity to (mostly white) police officers at rates sometimes five to ten times higher than whites.

This is a recipe for disaster.

Nonetheless, the media are enamored by what Colin Kaepernick is going to do next. He is apparently donating $1 million to community organizations to combat inequality.

Kaepernick could save a million dollars and countless lives by addressing the wanton disregard for life in black America.

Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson.