Jacksonville shooting gives US media the ‘white racist’ narrative it craves

Ryan Palmeter’s despicable murder of three is spun to support the claim white people are the black community’s worst enemies.

Last Saturday, 21-year-old Ryan Palmeter, armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a Glock handgun, killed three black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida before committing suicide. As it became immediately clear from the news reports, Palmeter was a radicalized white male and deeply racist, of that there can be no doubt. So here we have a tragedy that reinforces the idea that white Americans, by their inherent ‘supremacist’ nature, are attacking black people en masse. Is there any truth to this narrative?

First, it’s important to understand that the vast majority of crime in the United States is intra-racial, meaning that crimes against white, black and Hispanic people are committed overwhelmingly by members of their own race (The notable exception is the Asian-American population, who are more often victimized by members of other races). However, the mainstream media rarely if ever mentions the interracial crime statistics between white and black people, and for good reason.

According to statistics by the Bureau of Justice, there were 562,550 total acts of nonfatal violence between black and white people in the year 2019. Of that amount, 472,550 of those criminal acts, or 84%, were black people assaulting white people. In the same year, there were 89,980 incidents of white people assaulting black people, or just 16% of total criminal acts reported between the two races.

The situation with regards to homicides paints no less of a disproportionate picture. According to the FBI, 3,299 white Americans were murdered in 2019. Of that number, 2,594 of the victims (79%) were killed by white perpetrators, while 566 of them (17%) were killed by black perpetrators. Meanwhile, 2,906 black Americans were murdered in 2019. Of that number, 2,574 (89%) were killed by black perpetrators, while 246 (8%) were killed by white perpetrators.

To understand the demographics at play, there are about 235 million white Americans and about 47 million black Americans living in the US. This means that one out of every one million white Americans killed a black person in the year 2019. By contrast, 12 out of every one million black Americans killed a white individual in the same year. Now, if the US were really suffering from an epidemic of ‘systemic racism’ against black people, one would expect those numbers from the ‘white oppressor’ category to be much higher. And that’s why the media shifts into overdrive anytime a white person commits a violent crime against a black person: it doesn’t want its audience to suspect that murders inspired by racism of the sort just witnessed in Jacksonville are extremely rare occurrences.

One way the media hypes such stories is by focusing attention on the race of the suspect – but only if the suspect is white. For example, here is how CNN reported on the criminal case involving Andrew Lester, who shot a black youth in April: “A White 84-year-old homeowner who allegedly shot and wounded Ralph Yarl, a Black teen, after the 16-year-old went to the wrong home to pick up his siblings, will face two felony charges, Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson announced early Monday evening.”

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the mainstream media’s style guide changed, but gone are the days when you will read in a news article: ‘police are looking for a black suspect.’ Yet by refusing to speak the truth in an effort to help the authorities track down fugitives, the media is working against the best interests of the community it is supposed to serve. Not surprisingly, since the mainstream media is heavily invested in liberal ideology, there is a significant political component to this agenda, as clearly witnessed in Jacksonville.

In its report on the Jacksonville shooting, the Associated Press could not resist dragging politics into the discussion.

“Elected officials said racist attacks like Saturday’s have been encouraged by political rhetoric targeting ‘wokeness’ and policies from the Republican-led state government headed by [Governor Ron] DeSantis, including one taking aim at the teaching of Black history in Florida.”

What AP failed to mention, however, is that the black history course that DeSantis rejected from Florida’s College Board was to include “Black Queer Studies,” arguments for reparations, street activism and critical race theory, which denigrates all white people as oppressors while designating all black people as helplessly oppressed victims. It would be difficult to imagine anything else that aggravates tensions between the races more than that college-level curriculum. In any case, for AP to suggest just one day after the crime had been committed that Ryan Palmeter was somehow incited to kill due to the policies of the Republican administration is the height of journalistic recklessness.

Meanwhile, conservatives are noticing a striking difference in the way the media is covering the Jacksonville shooting compared with the Nashville shooting. On March 27, Aiden Hale (born Audrey Elizabeth Hale), a transgender man, indiscriminately shot and killed three nine-year-old children and three adults at the Covenant School, a private Christian school in the suburbs of Nashville. Hale was a former student at the school.

While the mainstream media was quick to describe the Jacksonville shooting as a ‘hate crime (here, here and here),’ which it most certainly was, the same label did not apply when six Christians were murdered in cold blood by a transgender person.

“We have opened a federal civil rights investigation and we will pursue this incident as a hate crime,” said Sherri Onks, an FBI special agent. “Hate crimes are always and will always remain a top priority for the FBI because they are not only an attack on a victim, they are also meant to threaten and intimidate an entire community.”

Are we supposed to believe that the Christian community, which largely opposes the transgender movement, did not feel threatened and intimidated by Hale’s heinous act, especially considering that it occurred just days before a planned ‘Trans Day of Vengeance’ protest was scheduled to happen in Washington, DC?

Yet, instead of the media discussing the details of the Nashville shooting and its Christian victims, it focused attention on the transgender community. NBC News, for example, carried a story with the headline, ‘Fear pervades Tennessee’s trans community amid focus on Nashville shooter’s gender identity.’ The article mentioned a transgender drag performer, Denise Sadler, who said she would have to hire armed guards following the “anti-trans rhetoric spawned by the shooting.” Not a peep, however, about how Christians were dealing with security issues.

Meanwhile, CBS News reportedly went as far as to bar the word ‘transgender’ from its coverage of the Nashville shooter, despite the fact that the police had identified Hale as transgender almost immediately. Now try and imagine CBS reporters writing up the Jacksonville shooting story without mentioning the term ‘white supremacist.’

All things considered, the establishment media is the main purveyor of hate and fear that is sowing discord between the races. While there is certainly a small group of individuals in the US, from both the black and white communities, who could be described as racist, the statistics do not support the claim that the country is suffering from ‘systemic racism.’ In fact, judging by the way the media handles such stories, it would be more correct to say the US suffers from ‘systemic propaganda,’ and the sort that inspires mentally deranged copycat attackers. The US media really needs to get its facts straight on US race relations before it singlehandedly sparks irreversible civil discord between black and white people.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of DTNZ.