Steven Crowder Misses the Mark on ‘Black Fatigue’ — The Real Enemy Isn’t Black America

Conservative podcaster Steven Crowder recently released the first part of a production titled “Black Fatigue is Real and I Told Them Why,” in which he visited a Black barbershop in Indianapolis to have a conversation about race relations in America.

As you might have already guessed, the conversation centered on the right-wing bastardization of the term “Black Fatigue.” Crowder took the opportunity to air the grievances young White people have with the Black community in a spirited and lively discussion.

It went about how you might expect.

Crowder brought up some of the complaints White people have expressed, mostly on social media and digital platforms, while the Black participants responded to them. Most of what the podcaster brought up were the typical right-wing talking points about the Black community — nothing new there.

But what was interesting about this discussion was that Crowder’s primary point was that younger White people are becoming increasingly angry with Black people because of violence, unfairly being labeled as racist, and other issues. He warned that the behavior of Black people is somehow turning many young Whites into racists.

He made plenty of points that were either wholly inaccurate or misleading at best. I’m going to debunk them.

Now, onto the video.

Are Black People Hunting Down White People?

One of the biggest sticking points for young White people, according to Crowder, is Black on White violence. He makes the dubious claim that “White people are 12 times as likely to be killed by a Black person than the reverse.”

I’ve seen several right-wingers on social media peddling this claim — usually in meme form. And as is typical, it’s a total lie.

If you look at FBI data from 2019, the most recent we have so far, the truth is that White people are about two times as likely to be killed by a Black person as vice versa.

Of course, that’s still a significant disparity that is indefensible. But it would be far worse if Crowder’s numbers were actually accurate. Still, for folks like Crowder, this is an issue. I’ve seen others like him use these numbers to make it appear that Black men are running around hunting White people who are helpless victims (see what I did there?) at the hands of vicious melanated people.

But there is more to this story.

If one looks at all of the numbers, they see that blaming an entire community for the actions of these individuals makes about as much sense as leaving your daughter alone with Joe Biden.

FBI data shows that fewer than one percent of the Black population actually commits violent crimes. Even when you narrow it down to Black men aged between 16 and 34, only about one to three percent are arrested (not necessarily convicted) of a violent offense. There is also the fact that about 26 percent of violent offenders have been arrested for other violent offenses, meaning that at least some of these offenses are being committed by repeat offenders, not different Black people.

This means that a considerably smaller percentage have murdered a White person.

I also have to point out the irony in this situation. Whenever a racially motivated mass shooter like Dylan Rooff and others target Black people for mass shootings, the refrain you typically hear from right-wing media figures is: “But what about Black on Black crime?”

The point is that far more Black people are killed by Black people than by racist Whites, so it shouldn’t be a big deal.

Allow me to flip the script.

About 81 percent of White homicide victims were killed by other White people. My question is: Why is Crowder and other young White folks not concerned about these deaths? Why is there no “fatigue” for this?

You see the hypocrisy here, right?

The bottom line is that murder is always evil, regardless of the skin color of the people involved. If anything, Americans of all races should have murder fatigue.

More School Funding?

Another issue Crowder raised relates to government funding for schools. “Black students in this country get more spending per people than white students. I don’t know if you know that. That’s an actual fact. Even in impoverished neighborhoods through public funding,” he said.

This is like claiming Joe Biden doesn’t have any cognitive issues.

A 2023 analysis conducted by the Learning Policy Institute revealed that predominantly minority schools get as much as $2,000 less per student than White students in majority-White districts.

School funding in most states is tied primarily to local property taxes. Because of this, wealthier and Whiter students in the suburbs generate far more revenue per student than lower-income, urban areas that tend to enroll more Black and Hispanic children.

Yes, there are some state and federal programs aimed at balancing this out — but the disparity remains, leaving minority students shortchanged by the system.

Whites Can’t Complain About Black People?

Another point of contention is the notion that White people can’t express their opinions about Blacks and people of other races without being called racist. “What I’m saying is Black fatigue is White people going, ‘you know what? I know I’m not racist, and I know that we’re dealing with record crime, and I know that I’m more at risk, and they have negative interactions, and they’re constantly told that they’re not allowed to voice their opinion because they’re White,” Crowder said.

He further stated that he has seen young White people “who are becoming actually racist.”

There is truth to this. Folks on the left throw out the word “racist” like beads at a mardi gras parade. White progressives pay Black faces big bucks to get in front of a camera to call White people racist. White guilt-stricken White leftists virtue signal by calling other Whites racist. It’s all over the place on the airwaves and interwebs.

Still, Crowder literally went into a Black barbershop to express his opinions — and they didn’t call him racist. Right-wing pundits go on social media to voice all kinds of opinions — accurate and inaccurate — about the Black community. Spreading narratives about Black people are one of the easiest ways to get clicks on platforms like X.

Nobody is calling for the government to silence them.

Cancel culture is certainly an issue. There have been people who have lost their jobs for expressing their opinions on Black people online. There are plenty of times when this might be deserved and others when it’s not. Companies have a right to associate or disassociate with whomever they wish. I write for a conservative publication. Can you imagine what would happen if I went on social media talking about how much I hate White people? I don’t think I’d have a job for much longer — and rightly so.

Which brings me to my next point.

Who is really causing all these problems for Whites? Who is stealing property through civil asset forfeiture? Who is legally kidnapping children? Who is sending Whites to die in needless wars? Who is stealing money out of every paycheck? Who is dumbing down Americans of all races?

It ain’t Black people. It’s the government.

Yet, many right-wing influencers are stirring up animosity toward Black people. They want White people to be afraid of and angry at Black people for issues the government is causing. It’s the same play the left uses when they try to convince the nation that there are KKK members waiting behind every tree to find a Black person to lynch.

This is the psyop.

The elites who run the government, media, education, and other institutions have convinced us to fear and hate one another, distracting us from the fact that they are the ones screwing all of us. If Crowder’s contention that young White people are becoming more racist, it is because of these institutions, not the Black community.

It’s also worth noting that most of what Crowder describes is an online phenomenon. In real life, people of all ethnicities get along quite well. People aren’t at each other’s throats out in the streets or in the workplace. If there are White people getting radicalized and racist, it is more a result of online conditioning than everyday Black people.

What would happen if we rejected the psyop? What if we sought out content online that aims to unite against the true enemy instead of chasing the next wind of outrage?

Things would change, which is precisely what the elites fear.