By Black Men In America.com Staff

The recent White House summit regarding the events in Ferguson is one of many incidents and experiences resulting from the Ferguson Grand Jury’s decision not to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown.

Everybody seems to have an opinion on this topic and some of the opinions have nothing to do with facts and other related data.  Here is a fact or two to consider:

• According to a study by USA Today, an average of 96 blacks are killed by white cops per year. 
• Last year, 6,000 blacks were murdered by other blacks — more than 60 times the number of blacks killed by white cops.
• In 2013, 409 whites were murdered by blacks.
• Black participation in the labor market has been steadily going downward during the Obama presidency.  All other racial groups have moved up.  Blacks are the only group that has taken a definitive step backwards.

The National Review Online posted an article by Peter Kirsanow with statistics on other issues of concern to black America including black unemployment, educational achievement, single motherhood, household income, poverty rates, and school discipline.

Black columnist Deroy Murdock wrote an article in May of this year contending that black Americans are worse off economically under President Obama.

NBA Analyst and former NBA great Charles Barkley conducted a “no-holds’ barred interview on CNN where he called the looters in Ferguson scumbags.  Barkley also said:  “Every time something happens in the black community, we have the same cast of sad characters. We don’t have to have Al Sharpton go there, we don’t have to have — and I’m not disparaging [Brown family lawyer] Mr. [Benjamin] Crunk.  I know he represented what happened in Florida with Trayvon’s family, and God bless them, but we have the same sad sack of black characters, we need strong black men in St. Louis to stand up, and say, hey, let’s handle this situation?”

Writer Jason L. Riley wrote:  “Today blacks are about 13 percent of the population and continue to be responsible for an inordinate amount of crime. Between 1976 and 2005 blacks com­mitted more than half of all murders in the United States. The black arrest rate for most offenses — including robbery, aggravated assault and property crimes — is still typically two to three times their representation in the population. Blacks as a group are also overrepresented among persons arrested for so-called white-collar crimes such as counterfeiting, fraud and embezzlement. And blaming this decades-long, well-documented trend on racist cops, prosecutors, judges, sentencing guidelines and drug laws doesn’t cut it as a plausible explanation.”

Pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson wrote a column where he opined the following:  “There are few things that can compare to the emotional devastation that accompanies such an event. This makes the varied emotional responses of Michael Brown’s family more understandable as the tragic events unfolded in Missouri. What is difficult to understand, though, is the benefit that the Ferguson, Missouri, community derives from burning and looting business establishments in their own neighborhoods, especially when unemployment is already a problem. In the meantime, the outside agitators in many cases are sitting in their hotel rooms sipping wine and watching the carnage on television.

Hopefully, people in communities such as Ferguson, like people all over America, are beginning to awaken and realize that they should be more than pawns in the hands of manipulators who, in reality, could not care less about them.”

President Obama held a summit on Ferguson but did not invite any representatives of the Ferguson Police Department.  “The president was interested in gathering stakeholders from across the country, not just one community,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest, who said the meetings focused on “building bridges and restoring some trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities that they’re sworn to serve and protect.”

Was the summit more of a political move?  Is the White House and Department of Justice serious about bridging the gap between the police and the black community?

President Obama photo courtesy (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)