STATISTICS: CRIME AND THE NUMBERS GAME:

The present media wave about the tragic death of Trayvon Martin is for me, an outsider, a fascinating lesson in race, politics, and media perversity in America.

The impression is being generated that young black men are continuously hunted by white men, and killed.

So I wanted to know the exact figures. The most recent, those of 2009, I could find are on the site of the Department of Justice, called Crime in the United States. . . . The main problem for young black men is not violent white men chasing them. It is black on black violence.

But there’s less political hay to be made.

Related: Tom Maguire on Jesse Jackson, Obama’s Grandma, and looking down on welfare recipients. “FWIW, I deplore the attitude Jackson is promoting here.”