Donald Trump is the leading candidate in the Republican primary, so you may think that he and his team would be on top of researching accurate information about the United States. Unfortunately, according to a recent article in Think Progress , that doesn’t seem to be the case.
On Sunday, Trump tweeted an infographic that claimed to break down the racial make-up of murderers and murder victims in 2015.
There are, however, several things wrong with this infographic, as Judd Legum of Think Progress writes.
“ @SeanSean252 : @WayneDupreeShow @Rockprincess818 @CheriJacobus pic.twitter.com/5GUwhhtvyN”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2015
Firstly, the infographic states that these statistics pertain to crimes committed during 2015 but official crime statistics are collected by the FBI and are released yearly. The 2015 report has not been released as yet.
The graphic claims that 81 percent of “whites” were killed by “blacks” in 2015, but that isn’t reflected in the official FBI data for 2014. The FBI’s official Crime In The United States Report 2014 indicates that the percentage of murders committed by African Americans against “whites” was actually 14 percent.
The graphic tweeted by Donald Trump also claims that 97 percent of murders in 2015 were as a result of black on black crime, but this staggering percentage is also inaccurate.
According the FBI’s 2014 Crime Report , 89 percent of “blacks” are killed by other “blacks.” It also states that the percentage of whites murdered by people of their race is close to 83 percent. The graphic that Trump tweeted states that this percentage is 16 percent.
Luckily, some very knowledgeable and observant Twitter users have pointed out just how inaccurate the infographic is.
@realDonaldTrump Your figure to the right is incorrect. The bar graph shows correct FBI figures for 2011 homicides. pic.twitter.com/NQ3zpgZEUf
— Harold Pollack (@haroldpollack) November 22, 2015
@haroldpollack I kinda wish throwing facts at @realDonaldTrump had the same effect as dumping water on the Wicked Witch. @goldietaylor
— Ron Hebshie (@RONTHINKblog) November 22, 2015
@CaptainSDaniels when you make up “facts” to fill a racist narrative, it’s racist…not hard to put that together
— Jason M Snelson (@snelson2012) November 22, 2015
In September, Trump boldly stated that he would have no problem attracting black voters , an article in Newsweek reported.
“Generally, Republicans do not do well with African-Americans,” Trump said.
“I have a lot of friends, African-Americans in New York, they say, ‘You’re going to get most of the vote.’”
However, a Black Lives Matter supporter was violently ejected from a Trump campaign rally recently, causing many to blast Donald Trump for his stance on racial minorities.
According to the Washington Post, the protester Mercutio Southall Jr was heard shouting “ Black Lives Matter ” during the rally which prompted Donald Trump to pause his remarks and demand that Mercutio be removed.
Trump staffers now barring reporters from going into the crowd to witness protester clashes: https://t.co/DGCAhNAvB8 pic.twitter.com/VrKKjkcPI1
— Jenna Johnson (@wpjenna) November 22, 2015
“Get him the hell out of here, will you, please?” Trump said. “Get him out of here. Throw him out!” In a video posted by CNN, you can see Southall fall to the ground, and it looks like members of the crowd are punching and kicking him
A black protester at Trump’s rally today in Alabama was shoved, tackled, punched & kicked: https://t.co/Aq0wuaAtax pic.twitter.com/cTRDMtjuBl — Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) November 21, 2015
As Southall was escorted out of the location, you can hear cheers of “All Lives Matter” and see people shoving him. But Trump has said that he feels that this treatment was justified.
“Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing,” Trump commented on the Fox News Channel on Sunday morning, The Washington Post reports
“I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a trouble-maker who was looking to make trouble.” This isn’t the first time that a protester has been ejected from a Donald Trump campaign event.
In October, a pro-immigration protester, Ariel Rojas, was dragged out of a trump campaign rally in Miami, Florida, The Huffington Post reports.
According to The Huffington Post , the crowd chanted, “USA! USA! USA” as he was violently ejected from the rally.
Video by NBC 6 South Florida. Trump supporters drag Latino protester out of campaign rally. https://t.co/gs887hCoC5
— IE Peters (@iefap1940) November 22, 2015
[Photo by Ian MacNichols/ Getty Images]