At the onset of the Black Lives Matter movement, Jesse Jackson stated that, in response to the tragic death of Trayvon Martin, “black men are under attack.” It spurred a response several years in the making but one that has culminated in the most expansive movement in response to...what exactly? Widespread racism?
We do not discount the existence of individual racism in America. We do question how pervasive the problem really is. Quite simply, there is never any real proof of racism when asked. Older headlines like Jussie Smollet being attacked for being black (and gay), and newer headlines like the discovery of nooses in an Oakland park and a NASCAR garage, always lead talking heads to decry “look how racist we are!” Then, more often than not, the headlines evaporate with the addition of new information. Do you remember the ado regarding this headline? Did you ever hear how it ended? A recently-released book cites evidence that as few as one-third of all race-baiting headlines turn out to be true (out of 400 readily Googled headlines). While posted, corrections to the original stories are rarely advertised.
It is worth repeating the whole Black Lives Matter movement was built on top of several falsehoods, including that Big Mike was innocent of committing any crime, that Officer Wilson killed him in cold blood, and the nature of the chant ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.’ Again, tragic how everything happened. Tragic for Michael Brown, Officer Wilson, and the innocent community that suffered the wrath of violent opportunists. Radio talkshow host Larry Elder just came out with this timely video on the whole event.
If such initial evidence in the cases involving Jussie Smollet, Bubba Wallace, and Michel Brown makes us a racist nation, does the innocuous nature or rebuttal of them make us not racist? Or does proof only work in one direction?
In terms of the Black Lives Matter movement, one can honestly ask why such vengeful action is taken toward America writ large when a single black man is killed by a white police officer, but then remain silent over the next however many deaths amidst ongoing inner-city violence. The prospect of a falsified and dangerously duplicitous media narrative raises legitimate concerns about the lack of critical thinking and gullibility of the American voter.
This premise got us wondering. Can anyone craft a narrative? How can statistics be used to promote a cause? Black Lives Matter has certainly launched a successful campaign to convince the average American based on - at best - incomplete data, framed without context, that the black community is under siege from the white community.
To be clear, the rest of this article - on the narrative of white men being victims of a larger systemic problem - is not to speak glibly or off-handedly of the very real and very personal grief in the black community, let alone any community. We sympathize with every parent, sibling, or friend for their loss of a loved one. Every loss is real, but as it turns out not every narrative is. While facetious in its undertaking, it is still nevertheless an honest look at real issues facing men, especially white men. For whatever privilege they are purported to have, there is no shortage of evidence suggesting the situation might be a little more complex than stated.
*Note, the following figures are all cited from left-leaning sources and have not been distorted in any way.
White males are the primary target of the criminal justice system
The war on men is inarguable. In the past few years, police have killed 897 (2017), 996 (2018), 1,004 (2019), and are on pace for similar figures in 2020. Of those, 95-96% of the victims are consistently male. Digging deeper into the statistics, we find that white males endure fatal encounters more than any other subgroup. In terms of a racial impact and referring to the same figures of 897, 996, and 1,004, 457, 399, and 370 victims were white, respectively. Put another way, whites are more than 1.5x more likely to be killed by police than the next subgroup (blacks), who account for 223, 209, and 235 deaths in the same time frame.
Data on imprisonment fares no better for males. Specifically, the federal incarceration rates for men and women are equally disproportionate: Fully 93% of all federal inmates are male. In the past few decades, prison reform advocacy and alternatives to longer prison sentencing have reduced the overall count, but again, not proportionally. While the black imprisonment rate has declined by 31% since 2007, whites have only seen a 14% decrease.
White men disproportionately commit suicide
Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. However, underneath that metric is the epidemic of the impact of suicide on men. Of the nearly 50,000 deaths attributed to suicide annually in the United States, almost 80% of the dead are men. Moreover, nearly 70% of all deaths by suicide belong to just one identity group - white males. As white men are increasingly passed over jobs due to affirmative action, told by feminists that women need them as much as a fish needs a bicycle, and vilified in the growingly-popular mainstream narrative as the implicitly guilty party of white systemic racism, the results are tragic; since 2009 the suicide rate as risen from 11.7 per 1000,000 to 14.2 per 100,000, an increase of over 20%. Lest anyone cite the example of firearms being too readily available in the United States, this metric holds true in the UK, a society in equal decline thanks to the same Marxist forces. Over there, suicide is the “single biggest killer of men under 45.”
Men are the least represented in college than at any other time in history
“Where men once went to college in proportions far higher than women - 58 percent to 42 percent as recently as the 1970s - the ratio now has almost exactly reversed.” So concludes an article from the Atlantic in 2017. In raw numbers, this translates into 2.2 million more females than males in higher education. They are also admitted at a higher rate than men in general.
It is worth pointing out that unlike the feminist movement, which looks to bring down men, we celebrate the advancement of educated women. More successful people beget a more successful country. Nevertheless, it is disconcerting that the same efforts that introduced American women (again, worthy of overt distinction because educated females are not a universal norm) has been slow to respond to the loss of men in college. Studies show that men with a bachelor’s degree earn, on average, $900,000 in lifetime earnings than men with just a high school diploma.
In terms of race, all subgroups identified as a combination of their race and biological sex saw increases in college particpation, although white males saw the slowest growth of college participation between the years of 2000 and 2018, compared to white women, black men, and especially Hispanic men. Again, we celebrate the success of other groups, but need to point out that white men are being left behind.
Men rarely receive a fair outcome in legal custody battles
There is no escaping the fact that 90% of women receive majority legal custody in cases during the separation of a mother and father. Contrary to the feminist notion that society looks down upon women, it is a culturally-accepted mantra that women are better caregivers and providers for children. There is convincing evolutionary and biological truth for that, but in a world that wants to ignore evolution and biology, it doesn’t seem right to reinforce that now. In the face of such inequality, there is also little outcry about this fact. Despite the obvious roles men, more specifically fathers, contribute in the development of children, there is actually a move to continue it, as postmodern narrative blames them (the male victim) for their predicament.
It’s not a hard article to write. Additional allegations could have been explored, chief among them the notion of toxic masculinity, as well as the detriment of white employment vis-a-vis affirmative action programs, exclusion in both college and professional athletics, overt discrimination over car insurance, and others.
Does this all indicate white, male oppression?
A resounding no. To the extent that any disparities exist, there is a certain liberty in presenting the available statistics (the point of this whole piece), but more than anything each outcome is simply a reflection of individual agency. Which, by the way, is a good thing; we should all want and aspire to exercise as much individual choice as possible. To address the concerns raised:
Why are males so overrepresented in prison? Because they commit significantly more violent crime than females.
Why are males involved in nearly all of the fatal police encounters? Because they are the ones engaged in a crime that necessitates police intervention.
Why are males underrepresented in the university system? Because more men elect to go to vocational training or choose not to go to college. Period.
Does this reframe the narrative put forth by Black Lives Matter?
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