True, black men, especially young ones, stand a much greater chance of being murdered than white males. But almost all murders involve a victim and a killer of the same race. Yes, instances of black-white murder -- as, for example, when James Byrd, a black man of Jasper, Texas, was dragged to his death by three white men -- do exist. But nationally, according to the Department of Justice, 53 percent of known homicide suspects in 2010 were identified as black -- although blacks comprise only 13 percent of the population. And in murders involving a single black victim and a single offender, 90 percent of the time it is a black perpetrator who murders the black victim. Similarly, 83 percent of whites are murdered by other whites.
What happened in Sanford, Fla. -- a white person killing a black person -- is extremely infrequent, occurring in 8 percent of black homicides. In saying "blacks are under attack," Jackson paints a picture of whites targeting and hunting down black males.