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5 Misleading Statistics Used by Media to Fuel Negative Stereotypes About Black People

Black on Black Crime?

1. “Black-on-Black Crime” Statistics

“Black-on-Black crime” was a term coined in the ’80s to describe the rise in gang violence in urban areas in the United States. Since then, the phrase has been used to perpetuate the idea that there is an epidemic of in-group violence in the African-American community that is not seen in other communities.

But is this really true?

While it is true that 93 percent of African-American deaths are at the hands of African-Americans, however, this is by no means only true in Black communities. A similar percentage of all deaths can be attributed to a perpetrator who is the same race as the victim.  There is no evidence that Black people kill each other at a higher rate than whites do, or anyone else for that matter.

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