Toronto City Life » One For The Ages: The Math Of Black Lives Matter

One For The Ages: The Math Of Black Lives Matter

Posted on August 2nd, 2020 –

Everyone knows that Black Lives Matter. Duh.

But due to racism and slavery and etc. there’s a question that no one is willing to ask: just how much do Black Lives Matter?

Well, thanks to the investigative work of some local newspapers we can finally answer that question!

Gird your loins … the results will startle you.

Before I get into it I want to clarify that in a previous OFTA post I made it seem like individual lives shouldn’t matter, that only group-based averages that flip the numbers on their (correct) head were worth considering. Clearly, that was my confused white supremacy talking. It doesn’t fit in with the Black Lives Matter messaging and could be construed as cold, callous, and dismissive (not to mention racist!), so I’m changing the narrative — individual (Black) lives do matter!

The two sources I used for this include a very recent study by the CBC and a similar, albeit more limited, study by CTV.

Both make sure to highlight the fact that Black and Indigenous people are far more likely to be killed by police (when various mathematical transformations are applied), so we can be fairly certain that the numbers aren’t skewed to support some racist (i.e. white) narrative. The CTV study even quotes Norm Taylor, an expert on Indigenous policing, who describes the numbers as “staggering” and “shocking”, so you know it’s totally balanced and unbiased.

Are your loins sufficiently girded? Here are the numbers…

These numbers are pretty much the same whether the people killed were armed or unarmed but before you go off making ignorant assumptions, it’s important to be reminded that in both tables all lives are given equal weight within the total Canadian population which is, of course, unbelievably racist.

And in case you thought that challenging ~~popular~~ suppressed information was somehow noble or enlightening, here’s an asshole white supremacist with the caucasity to preach about his own non-status-quo “research” (i.e. hate), even going so far as to compare Black People’s experiences to his own (!):

What an ignorant fucking racist piece of shit, huh?

The important take-away from all this is that, obviously, Black Lives Matter anywhere from an estimated 4 to 6 times more than white lives, depending on the numbers used. This explains why when a Black Person is killed by cops it results in mass demonstrations and round-the-clock media coverage, and conversely when a white person is killed, well, who gives a fuck.

In the words of BLM Toronto co-founder Yusra Khogali:

“Plz Allah give me the strength not to cuss/kill these men and white folks out here today. Plz plz plz.”

After posting this irate retort to hateful whites who question the scientifically established primacy of Black People, understandable since clearly her Black opinion matters about 4 to 6 times more than theirs, this brave young woman also hijacked a Pride parade to remind everyone of the (now mathematically derived!) superiority of Black Lives. In a clever twist she was subsequently awarded a Leadership award by the mayor, thus demonstrating just how deep systemic racism runs.

Despite her understandable rage, she’s since somehow managed to tone down her approach to just calling white people “subhuman genetic defects” (do I smell another award?!), but it seems she’s finally getting her positive, inclusive, peaceful message across: Black Lives Matter … considerably more.

/sarcasm mode off

Why does this seem to be so regularly and easily glossed over?

White people are overwhelmingly killed by police throughout North America when compared to all other ethnic groups. The numbers, the individual people killed, are there in all the stark statistics. Then they’re deeply massaged by proportional calculations which I’m sure have their uses and provide useful information, but do these calculations outweigh the importance of individual human lives? Not to me.

And wouldn’t it be nice if this was at least part of the discussion?

My intention with this is not to diminish but to raise. Why is it so awful to suggest that all lives matter? By that I mean, literally, every one. Is it because it “misses the bigger picture“? (note the linked report which further confirms my points regarding “proportional” calculations)

I’ve looked at the bigger picture, as suggested, and my conclusion is that the story being told is not an honest one. It’s a distortion of the bigger picture, one that hides individual human lives behind equations. Or is that preferable?

It makes my blood boil to see anyone being brutalized by the state. I believe that the history of posts on this blog will back up this position in multiple ways. Should I care more, or less, about the victims because of the colour of their skin? Fuck that shit — the evidence doesn’t fit. I don’t think it ever has.