While a higher national violent crime rate in predominately black areas may explain increased encounters with police overall, it does not explain the more than 2 times higher rate of police fatal shootings while unarmed. It doesn't even necessarily explain over policing in individual black areas with similar crime rates as white counterparts. It doesn't explain why black people are more likely to be searched, arrested, and are more likely to receive longer sentences. It doesn't justify why police are more likely to be excessive in their use of force with suspects that are POC for similar crimes committed by white people. Furthermore, even if a violent crime was committed, it does not give the police a free pass to kill someone, that is not how our criminal justice system works. An accused criminal should not be executed before they've been convicted.
You are right. Inputs of individuals are not random and some individuals do more of X or Y than others, and it would appear based on many studies that police are more likely to shoot black people, regardless of reason, than their white counterparts.
My point is that the teaching of history is relative and not immune to bias. We often romanticize western civilization and history by whitewashing (both figuratively and literally) cultural influences and events. The effect is a rosy picture of western civilization that has done so much good without the mention of the horrible things or the contributions of those who would not be considered western. It also has the effect of centering democracy and capitalism as the primary forces of good, while leaving the good done in non-democratic or capitalist societies or by those who did not believe in those western ideals. That teaching of history is not accurate, because not only does it not teach history in its totality, but has the secondary effect of actually misinforming people about history.
I propose we teach all of history.
A few sources for you:
https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crime/quarterly
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/pbtss11.pdf
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/cities
(deleted the original because i forgot to also post on profile)
