You have to read this Jim Geraghty piece in the National Review where he unpacks the data behind a poll that suggests large majorities of respondents believe that between 1,000 and 10,000 unarmed black men are shot by police officers every year. Jim makes the point that the media are to blame for this egregious misconception very well, but I want to make a slightly different point.
I was talking to a friend of mine who is on the Center-Left earlier this week. I said “did you see this poll that asked people how many unarmed black men are shot by the police each year?” He said that he had not and, in any case, “I wouldn’t even know what to guess.”
Now, this is a very smart guy who is extremely politically saavy. How can it be possible that he doesn’t even have enough information to make a guess? Other than the COVID crisis, the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted after the death of George Floyd were the biggest story of 2020, and probably the biggest story of the last decade, maybe even the biggest story since the 9/11 attacks. At the heart of this huge story lies a critical question… exactly how many unarmed black men are shot by police every year?
How can it be possible in the wake of all that’s happened in the last twelve months that every American does not know the answer to that question?
Well, it’s pretty obvious. We don’t know because we haven’t been told. And we haven’t been told because the answer is not politically useful. I’ll leave it to you to investigate the actual number, it’s easy to find… but in the meantime consider this, is there any chance that if the correct answer was 10,000 per year the media wouldn’t be hyping that number every single day, all day, on every available news outlet?
Of course not.
Which, I suppose, brings up another question… has the Press failed us? Or are they doing exactly what they intend to do… keep us in the dark, and angry, and fighting with each other so we don’t wake up long enough to realize how hard we’re being screwed?
UPDATE: Megyn Kelly discussed this on her March 1 podcast with Tim Pool