Which Violence Against Black Lives Actually Matters?

Only crimes that support narratives about racism get attention

WHICH VIOLENCE AGAINST BLACK LIVES ACTUALLY MATTERS?

Only crimes that support narratives about racism get attention

Quinn Que ❁

There exists a troubling double standard in how violence against black people is acknowledged, condemned, and acted upon in contemporary discourse. The determining factor is often not the severity of the threat or harm, but rather whether the incident aligns with established political narratives. Violence that fits familiar storylines of right-wing racism receives immediate institutional attention and media amplification, while threats and violence from other sources—including left-aligned actors, intra-community violence, or cases too complicated to match established patterns—are minimized, ignored, or rationalized away.

This selective attention has profound consequences. It determines which victims receive solidarity, which perpetrators face accountability, and ultimately which Black lives are deemed worthy of protection. Such a phenomenon is especially dangerous in the wake of increased levels of violence, including political violence and racially motivated hate crimes, that have wreaked havoc on America of late, from the murders of Charlie Kirk and Iryna Zarutska, to the rise of left-wing terrorism more broadly. All Americans might be at risk, but the threat to black Americans seems to be at a disturbing level, compounded by the double standards at play.

When the Narrative Fits: Amplification and Institutional Support

Consider the immediate and overwhelming response when allegations align with the expected narrative of white supremacist violence. The Jussie Smollett case provides an instructive example. When the actor claimed he was attacked by Trump supporters in Chicago in 2019, the response was swift and all-encompassing. Politicians, celebrities, media outlets, and advocacy organizations immediately rallied to his defense. Presidential candidates condemned the attack. Major news organizations treated the claims as credible without significant scrutiny. The incident was framed as emblematic of rising hate in the Trump era.

When the allegations unraveled and evidence showed Smollett had orchestrated a hoax, the retraction and accountability were far more muted than the initial outrage. More significantly, the episode revealed how readily institutions mobilize when violence fits predetermined narratives, even before verification. This pattern of immediate belief and support when allegations confirm existing narratives stands in stark contrast to the reception given to black individuals who face threats from different sources.

When the Narrative Doesn’t Fit: Dismissal and Isolation

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born women’s rights activist and critic of radical Islam, has lived under death threats for decades. She requires constant security. Her colleague Theo van Gogh was murdered in 2004 for their collaborative work. Despite these documented, ongoing threats to her life, Hirsi Ali has often found herself isolated rather than championed by many progressive institutions and media outlets that would typically defend threatened black women.

Why? Because her critique of Islamist extremism complicates preferred narratives. Rather than receiving the protective solidarity extended to those facing threats from right-wing sources, she’s frequently dismissed, criticized for her politics, or threats against her are minimized. The threatening actors don’t fit the approved villain profile, and neither does she fit the approved victim profile—strictly because of her unwelcome ideology—so the institutional machinery that rapidly mobilizes in other cases remains dormant.

This isn’t merely about one individual. Conservatives, classical liberals, and others who dissent from progressive orthodoxy routinely face threats, harassment, and even violence with little institutional support. Their experiences are treated as less legitimate, their safety less worthy of concern.

The CHAZ/CHOP Murders: When Ideology Protects Perpetrators

In June 2020, activists established the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone or CHAZ (later renamed Capitol Hill Organized Protest or CHOP) in Seattle. Within this space, which excluded regular police presence, multiple shootings occurred over the course of mere months. Among the victims were two black teenagers: 19-year-old Horace Lorenzo Anderson Jr. and 16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. These men were killed in separate incidents, and the latter murder remains unsolved.

The response to these deaths was remarkably muted compared to other killings during that period. Major media coverage was limited. There were no national protests in their names. The circumstances of their deaths—occurring in a zone established by left-aligned Antifa activists, with security provided by those same activists—are rather unflattering to the American left, especially given the progressive and far left wing’s long insistence that they supposedly value black lives more than any other faction. Acknowledging the violence would require confronting uncomfortable questions about the autonomous zone experiment, the American Antifa movement, and how the absence of traditional policing almost certainly contributed to these brutal murders.

Horace Anderson’s father publicly expressed his anguish at the lack of attention to his son’s killing, contrasting it with other deaths that received massive coverage. These black lives didn’t generate the institutional response or cultural moment that others did, because the context didn’t fit the preferred framework for discussing violence.

Intraracial Violence: The Persistent Blind Spot

The vast majority of black homicide victims are killed by other black individuals. That these killings persist well into the 21st century is likely a function of residential proximity, community-level violence, and cultural rot rather than any top-down oppression factor. Yet this category of violence, which claims far more black lives than any government activities—about 234,000 since 2000—receives comparatively minimal institutional attention relative to its scale.

In cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and St. Louis, Black communities experience epidemic levels of violence. Weekends routinely see multiple homicides and dozens of shootings. Children are killed in crossfire. Families are devastated. Yet these deaths rarely generate the national media attention, political mobilization, or cultural reckoning that “preferred” categories of violence produce.

This isn’t to suggest these deaths are entirely ignored—local communities, families, and some activists work tirelessly on these issues. But the institutional weight, media amplification, and political capital devoted to these deaths is vastly disproportionate to their frequency. A single hate crime will generate more national coverage than literally thousands of intra-community homicides. For example, in 2023, there were 12,276 black homicide victims accounting for 50% of all homicides and the killers were overwhelmingly black. Where were the protests, the front page New York Times stories, and the “reckoning”?

The reasons for this disparity in public attention are complex, but one factor is clear: these deaths don’t serve a useful political narrative for major institutional actors. They can’t be easily incorporated into frameworks of systemic racism or right-wing extremism. They require grappling with difficult questions about poverty, family structure, criminal justice policy, and community violence that resist simple ideological answers.

The Global Pattern

This selective attention extends beyond American borders. Across the African diaspora, violence against black individuals receives vastly different treatment depending on perpetrator and context.

In the United Kingdom, black conservatives and those critical of progressive orthodoxy face harassment and threats with little protective response from institutions. In France, discussions of anti-black racism focus almost exclusively on far-right actors while minimizing or ignoring violence from other sources. Violence against black communities in South Africa, whether xenophobic attacks on other African immigrants or the ongoing scourge of crime, receives far less international attention than Apartheid-era violence once did.

The pattern is consistent: violence against black people is treated as a crisis requiring urgent response when it can be attributed to right-wing, white supremacist, or Western imperialist sources. Violence from other sources—including other black individuals, left-aligned actors, Islamist groups, or authoritarian governments not aligned with the West—generates far less institutional concern.

The Consequences of Selective Solidarity

This double standard has several pernicious effects:

First, it creates a hierarchy of victims where some black lives are implicitly valued more than others based on the political utility of their suffering. This is itself a form of dehumanization.

Second, it leaves vulnerable people without protection. When institutions only mobilize against certain categories of threat, those facing other dangers are abandoned. Black conservatives receive death threats without solidarity. Black communities devastated by intra-community violence lack proportionate institutional support. Black women threatened by non-Western extremism are dismissed.

Third, it prevents honest discussion of the actual threats facing black communities. If only certain narratives are permissible, problems that don’t fit those narratives remain unaddressed. This helps no one except those more invested in ideological consistency than in actual human welfare.

Fourth, it undermines credibility and trust. When the same institutions that instantly mobilize for some cases remain silent on others, people notice the selectivity. This breeds cynicism and undermines legitimate efforts to address real problems.

Toward Consistent Principles

The alternative is not to minimize any category of violence, but to apply consistent principles regardless of political convenience:

All credible threats against black individuals deserve serious treatment, regardless of the identity or ideology of those making threats. A black woman threatened by Islamist extremists deserves the same protection and solidarity as one threatened by white supremacists.

All violence against black people should receive attention proportionate to its frequency and severity. The epidemic of black homicide victims in American cities deserves institutional attention commensurate with its scale.

Claims of racist violence should be verified before becoming political rallying points, regardless of how well they fit preferred narratives. The rush to believe should be replaced with a commitment to truth.

Addressing violence requires honestly identifying its sources, even when those sources are politically inconvenient. Ideology should not determine which problems we’re willing to acknowledge.

Black communities and individuals should not have to perform political alignment to receive basic solidarity and protection. Support should be based on shared humanity, not ideological conformity.

Conclusion

The question “Which black lives matter?” should have a simple answer: all of them. But in practice, institutional behavior reveals a more troubling reality. The determining factor in whether violence against black people receives serious treatment is often not the severity of the harm but whether it serves a useful political narrative.

This selective outrage helps no one. It abandons vulnerable people, prevents honest problem-solving, and reveals that for too many institutions, black suffering is primarily useful as a political instrument. Genuine commitment to black welfare requires moving beyond narrative convenience to consistent principles—recognizing all threats, supporting all victims, and pursuing truth over ideology.

Until institutions demonstrate they can mobilize against violence regardless of its source, their selectivity will continue to speak louder than their stated values.

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Quinn “Edokwin” Que is a journalist, commentator, and artist featured in a variety of publications. His blog, the Edokwin Editorial, and his prolific Twitter (X) account are great sources of insight. A larger portfolio can be found on his Bento. His primary areas of interest are arts, entertainment, philosophy, and politics. His previous essays for the Journal of Free Black Thought include “Reforming the DEI Reforms” and “Racebending—What It Is and Why It Should End.” He appeared as a guest on a recent Free Black Thought Podcast episode titled “Race Is Astrology for Melanin Content.”