These leaders know, even if many of their adherents might not, that the biggest threat to the lives of young blacks is other young blacks, not white bigots. Between 2000 and 2010, 4,607 black murder victims 17 or younger were killed by other blacks (4,441 of the killers were 17 or younger), according to the Wall Street Journal. There were 340 black victims 17 or younger killed by (non-Latino) whites. That means black youths were 13 times more likely to be killed by a black person than by a white one.

The more recent data haven’t changed much. In 2011, according to the FBI, 2,695 blacks (of all ages) were killed, and the killers were nearly 13 times more likely to be black as white (2,447 to 193).

These data are no revelation (they have been constant for more than a decade), yet “leaders” and the far-too-complicit media purvey a notion that inter-group relations have plummeted and it’s open season on blacks and other minorities.

What is the reality? In January, Pew Research released a poll on group conflicts. It found that 58% of respondents see more disputes between rich and poor, and 55% see more between immigrants and native-born than see disputes between blacks and whites (39%). And in 2008, a Pew poll concluded that “whites, blacks and Hispanics all have generally favorable opinions of one another and all tend to see inter-group relations in a more positive than negative light…. The overall portrait of race relations is one of moderation, stability and modest progress.” That says nothing about the 95 million millennials whose attitudes are far more tolerant than their elders on a whole range of issues relating to race.