I'm Black, Don't Shoot ( Abort ) Me

I'm Black, Don't Abort Me

By
Jason L. Riley
Updated Feb. 23, 2014 12:31 p.m. ET


"I'm Black, Don't Shoot Me," is the website headline of a column in Friday's Washington Post by Eugene Robinson.

"Please don't shoot my sons, either, or my brothers-in-law, nephews, nephews-in-law or other male relatives," writes Mr. Robinson. "I have quite a few friends and acquaintances who also happen to be black men, and I'd appreciate your not shooting them as well, even if the value you place on their lives is approximately zero."

The column is a response to last week's verdict in the Michael Dunn trial. Jordan Davis, a black 17-year-old, was shot dead in his car by Dunn during a dispute over loud music. Dunn was found guilty on three counts of attempted second-degree murder—three other teenagers were in the car with Davis and survived—and could spend the rest of his life in prison. But the fact that the jury hung on the first-degree murder charge stemming from Davis's death has some black liberals in high dudgeon.
 
Mr. Robinson sees Dunn, who is white, as representative of a larger society that places less value—"approximately zero"—on the lives of blacks, or at least those blacks we don't twice-elect president. Fellow black commentator Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic magazine couldn't agree more. "Jordan Davis had a mother and a father. It did not save him. Trayvon Martin had a mother and a father. They could not save him," writes Mr. Coates. "My son has a father and mother. We cannot protect him from our country, which is our aegis and our assailant. We cannot protect our children because racism in America is not merely a belief system but a heritage, and the inability of black parents to protect their children is an ancient tradition."

According to the latest Justice Department figures, blacks make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but represent 50 percent of homicide victims. Moreover, black offenders kill 90 percent of black murder victims. And in the vast majority of interracial crimes, the victim is white and the perpetrator is black. In 2008 there were about 520,000 interracial violent crimes reported, and 82.5 percent were black-on-white, while just 17.5 percent were white-on-black. Messrs. Robinson and Coates would have us believe that black people in America should be more fearful of the Michael Dunns and George Zimmermans than of fellow blacks. Which is preposterous.

What these crimes statistics don't show is how early the black-on-black violence begins. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has just released a report showing that more black babies in the city are aborted than born. In 2012, there were 6,570 more abortions than live births of black children. The other groups studied—whites, Asians and Hispanics—all had more live births than abortions. Blacks are 25 percent of New York's population, but the black babies aborted were more than 42% of all abortions.

Perhaps that might interest black liberals who want to downplay black-on-black violence and lecture us about the value that whites place on black lives.