I Love America Too Much to Stay Silent

In 2015, more than 40 million residents of America were foreign born — that’s over 13% of the population, the highest percentage since 1890, when it was 14.8%.

America grants permanent residence to over a million people every year.

In the New York City public school system alone, some 176 different languages are estimated to be spoken among students.

Related video: “A Fine Time to Become an American” – Niall Ferguson

In 2017, the U.S. admitted over 50,000 asylum seekers.

In 2017, the U.S. naturalized over 65,000 immigrants from Europe, over 250,000 from Asia, and over 60,000 from Africa.

In 2017, the U.S. admitted 71,000 from the People’s Republic of China, and 170,000 from Mexico.

In 2013, Chinese and Indians surpassed Mexicans as the largest sources of immigrants.

Related reading: “Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States” – Migration Policy Institute

In 2019, the police killed 235 black people, most of them armed or dangerous, out of 1,004 police shooting victims overall. That 25% ratio is actually less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of the rate at which officers encounter violent suspects.

The Washington Post’s database of fatal police shootings in 2019 cites 9 unarmed black victims and 19 unarmed white victims of fatal police shootings.

Of the roughly 7,300 black homicide victims a year, the number of unarmed black people shot by police would constitute about 0.2% of the cases.

Harvard economist Roland Fryer’s study of more than 1,000 shootings concluded that police shootings show no racial bias and found that blacks are 24% less likely than whites to be shot by police in situations when they are armed or acting in a threatening manner.

The Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald found that data suggesting police bias in police-involved shootings of minorities was often de-contextualized, misleadingly ignoring details of the cases, such as the threatening actions of suspects and attempts to gain access to weapons.

Related reading: “The Myth of Systemic Police Racism” – Heather Mac Donald

George Floyd, 46, died on May 25, 2020, while in police custody after being arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis. When officers attempted to place him in the police vehicle, Floyd resisted, complaining of not being able to breathe and claiming that he was claustrophobic. During the arrest, Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes while Floyd repeatedly stated that he could not breathe. Video of the fatal arrest went viral before the full bodycam footage was released.

Chief medical examiner Dr. Andrew Baker listed Floyd’s death as a homicide but also determined that Floyd had “a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances,” according to a memorandum filed by the Hennepin County Attorney’s office in early June.

Dr. Michael Baden, who examined the body for the Floyd family, also stated that the fentanyl level in Floyd’s blood “could be fatal to some people, not necessarily for others. But the circumstances of death are very important, especially in this case.”

Floyd’s death became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement, with activists portraying his death as evidence of “systemic racism” in the criminal justice system. Some of the protests across the country quickly devolved into violent riots and looting. Many of the businesses destroyed or looted in the riots were minority-owned.

WATCH: Nestride Yumga, a D.C. resident and immigrant from Cameroon, denounces Black Lives Matter activists

Some of the most effective ways to reduce the number of police-involved deaths is to increase the amount of hands-on tactical training, practice for de-escalation, and teaching of techniques to control stress.

Defunding police agencies will almost certainly lead to an increase in fatalities. Fewer officers mean less back-up and thus more stress and more likelihood of bad decisions by officers in the face of potential danger. It will also lead to increased response times and a decrease in training.

Shifting police funding to social services will not reduce the amount of crime or fatal encounters, as New York City has demonstrated. New York City spent one-seventh of all government welfare dollars in America for decades, yet crime started falling in the city only when the NYPD adopted the data-driven policing that has now become the norm across the country — sending officers to the areas where they are most needed.

In the 75 largest U.S. counties, about 60% of robbery and murder defendants are black, even though blacks comprise only 15% of the population in those counties.

In New York City, blacks make up 73% of all shooting victims, though they are 23% of the city’s population.

In Chicago in 2016, there were 4,300 shooting victims –– almost all of whom were black. Among the two dozen victims under the age of 12 was a three-year-old, shot on Father’s Day, who is now paralyzed for life, and a ten-year-old, shot on Labor Day, whose pancreas and spleen were ripped apart.

Related reading: “Systemic Racism? Make Them Prove It.” – Andrew McCarthy