Summary

The article argues that police killings in the United States are more closely related to socioeconomic status than race, suggesting that the #BlackLivesMatter movement should also address class disparities by advocating for #PoorLivesMatter.

Abstract

The article on Medium presents a perspective that challenges the racial narrative surrounding police killings in the US. It posits that poverty, rather than race, is the predominant factor in police violence, with data indicating that police killings are racially proportionate to the poverty rates in the country. The author points out that while black Americans are killed by police at a rate disproportionate to their population percentage, this rate aligns with the proportion of black individuals living in poverty. The article emphasizes that American Indians, the poorest group, are more likely to be killed by police than any other racial group, and that wealthier individuals across all races are less likely to be killed by police. The piece suggests that focusing solely on race overlooks the broader issue of class and obscures similar instances of police violence against poor white and Hispanic individuals. The author advocates for a Basic Income as a solution to end both poverty and police violence, citing a successful pilot program in Namibia that led to a significant reduction in crime.

Opinions

The author believes that the #BlackLivesMatter movement inadvertently hides the truth about class and police killings by focusing only on race.
It is the opinion of the author that police killings are indicative of a class war rather than a race war, as poor individuals of all races are equally vulnerable to police violence.
The article suggests that Martin Luther King Jr. would have supported a more inclusive movement like #AllLivesMatter, as he recognized the shared experiences of poverty across racial lines.
The author criticizes the training of American police, which prioritizes the use of lethal force over de-escalation techniques, particularly when dealing with individuals who are disabled or mentally ill—groups that are disproportionately poor.
The piece argues that addressing poverty through measures like Basic Income could significantly reduce police violence and create a society where police serve to protect all citizens.
The author cites various studies and statistics to support the claim that racial disparities in police shootings are better explained by socioeconomic factors than by racial bias alone.

Why #BlackLivesMatter should be #PoorLivesMatter

Almost everyone killed by the police is poor, and police killings are racially proportionate to US poverty—there are two times more white Americans than black in poverty and two times more white Americans than black killed by the police each year. Because poor white and poor black people are equally likely to be killed, police killings aren’t part of a race war. They’re part of a class war.

People who reduce the problem to race only see that the police kill a racially disproportionate number of black Americans, which is undeniable—black people are 13.3% of the US, but 25% of people killed by the police are black.

But if you look at the intersection of race and poverty, it becomes obvious that police killings are racially proportionate to American poverty. In 2014, the Kaiser Foundation reported twenty million white Americans and ten million black Americans were in poverty—a ratio of two to one. Politifact noted, “Over the span of more than a decade, 2,151 whites died by being shot by police compared to 1,130 blacks”—a ratio of two to one.

Because Black Lives Matter only considers race, other truths about class and police killings are hidden, such as the fact that American Indians are more likely to be killed by the police than black people. Here’s the Counted’s breakdown of people per million killed by police in 2016:

5.49 Native American

4.16 Black

1.89 Hispanic/Latino

1.63 White

0.56 Asian/Pacific Islander

The racial list of who is most likely to be killed lines up with racial household income in the US: Native Americans are poorest, followed by blacks, then Hispanics, then non-Hispanic whites, and finally Asian Americans. The simple rule for police killings: the richer the group, the less likely its members will be killed by police.

The effect of wealth applies within races too. Ryan Cooper notes, “…the difference in lifetime risk of incarceration is something like ten times as great for low-class blacks as it is for high-class blacks. If we assume that the police are generally arresting the same people they interact with generally, then something similar likely holds for police shootings.”

Focusing on black people killed by the police hides similar examples of white and Hispanic people killed under equally outrageous circumstances. See For every black victim of the police, there are equivalent white victims.

America’s police are trained to kill when they feel threatened and have little training for dealing with people who don’t follow orders — which explains why half of the people killed by the police have a disability, which is part of the reason most victims are poor: the disabled are twice as likely to be poor.

Martin Luther King would probably agree with the majority of black Americans who prefer #AllLivesMatter to #BlackLivesMatter. He said, “…there are twice as many white poor as Negro poor in the United States. Therefore I will not dwell on the experiences of poverty that derive from racial discrimination, but will discuss the poverty that affects white and Negro alike.”

King said that when explaining why Basic Income is the fastest way to end poverty. Basic Income is also the fastest way to reduce police violence—in a pilot program for Basic Income in Namibia, crime fell by 42%. By ending poverty, we can make a world where the police will exist to protect and serve everyone.

Further reading:

Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias in Police Use of Force but Not in Shootings — The New York Times
What I’ve Learned from Two Years Collecting Data on Police Killings: “it’s poor people who are killed by police.”
Why Are So Many Black Americans Killed By Police? “a greater proportion of black Americans than white Americans live in poverty. Poverty is positively correlated with certain kinds of crime.”
To end police violence, we have to end poverty: “For prison, the difference in lifetime risk of incarceration is something like ten times as great for low-class blacks as it is for high-class blacks. If we assume that the police are generally arresting the same people they interact with generally, then something similar likely holds for police shootings.”
95% of Police Killings in 2015 Occurred in Neighborhoods With Incomes Under $100,000
Why do American cops kill so many compared to European cops? “…racism alone can’t explain why non-Latino white Americans are 26 times more likely to die by police gunfire than Germans. And racism alone doesn’t explain why states like Montana, West Virginia and Wyoming — where both perpetrators and victims of deadly force are almost always white — exhibit relatively high rates of police lethality.”
How Racial Disparity Does Not Help Make Sense of Patterns of Police Violence: “…according to the Washington Post data, the states with the highest rates of police homicide per million of population are among the whitest in the country: New Mexico averages 6.71 police killings per million; Alaska 5.3 per million; South Dakota 4.69; Arizona and Wyoming 4.2, and Colorado 3.36. It could be possible that the high rates of police killings in those states are concentrated among their very small black populations — New Mexico 2.5%; Alaska 3.9%; South Dakota 1.9%; Arizona 4.6%, Wyoming 1.7%, and Colorado 4.5%. However, with the exception of Colorado — where blacks were 17% of the 29 people killed by police — that does not seem to be the case. Granted, in several of those states the total numbers of people killed by police were very small, in the low single digits. Still, no black people were among those killed by police in South Dakota, Wyoming, or Alaska. In New Mexico, there were no blacks among the 20 people killed by police in 2015, and in Arizona blacks made up just over 2% of the 42 victims of police killing.
Is There Evidence of Racial Disparity in Police Use of Deadly Force? Analyses of Officer-Involved Fatal Shootings in 2015–2016: “When adjusting for crime, we find no systematic evidence of anti-Black disparities in fatal shootings, fatal shootings of unarmed citizens, or fatal shootings involving misidentification of harmless objects. Multiverse analyses showed only one significant anti-Black disparity of 144 possible tests. Exposure to police given crime rate differences likely accounts for the higher per capita rate of fatal police shootings for Blacks, at least when analyzing all shootings. For unarmed shootings or misidentification shootings, data are too uncertain to be conclusive.”
Poverty Explains Racial Bias in Police Shootings: “More important, the odds ratio of getting killed by police for poor Black citizens, 3.34 out of 100,000, is similar to the odds ratio of getting killed by police for poor White citizens, 3.64 out of 100,000. The odds ratio is close to 1, and does no longer show a racial bias for Black citizens to be killed more often by police, OR(B/W) = 0.92. In fact, there is a small bias for White citizens to be more likely to be killed. This might be explained by the fact that White US citizens are more likely to own a gun than Black citizens, and owning a gun may increase the chances of a police encounter to go wrong (Gramlich, 2018).”
Police Killings, Class, and “Race” by Noel Ignatiev: “when I controlled for income, the disparity practically disappeared: Of those in the poorest third, the group from whom the prison population was drawn, one out of twelve men, roughly the same among black as white, was in prison.”