Interracial Murders
What portion of all interracial murders in the U.S. are committed by the 77% of the U.S. population that is white?
Correct Answer
Over the past 40 years, roughly 11% of all murders in the U.S. were interracial. The rest involved people of the same races slaying one another. In 2019 (latest available data), 988 murders were committed in which the races of the victims and perpetrators are known. Among these, 303 or 31% were committed by the 77% of the population that is white. Politicians and the media often focus on a tiny fraction of the 15,000+ murders that occur every year, typically a white against another race. This is a common strategy of racists and demagogues, who demonize broad groups of people based on the actions of a few. Such tactics exploit the statistical fact that anecdotes can be highly deceitful and the psychological fact that people are easily misled by them because it's easier to grasp stories than data.
DocumentationRace & ViolenceRacial Demagoguery Tactics