When I was a kid, we used the term ‘racist’ to describe the actions or views of people who justified racial inequality because the racial group on the ‘bottom’ didn’t have the intelligence or the motivation of the racial group on the ‘top.’ And while there were always African-Americans who made stupid or hateful statements about Caucasians (think Jesse Jackson’s ‘Hymietown,’) these dopey attitudes didn’t qualify as racism because Whites who were sometimes demonized by Blacks were still on top.

This rather obvious Black-White interrelation blurred when the legal barriers upholding racial segregation began to collapse. It blurred some more as African-Americans, some African-Americans, a few African-Americans made it into the middle class or became visible and successful in entertainment and sports. And of course the idea that racism presupposed inequality became blurred even further when a certain Kenyan-born person moved his family into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, an address from which, unfortunately, he will soon have to depart.

But what has really confused the issue of racism is a conscious and continuous effort by the right-wing noise machine, aided and abetted by the Republican party and Fox News, to pretend that African-Americans are also racists whenever they raise concerns about their own status, as if questioning the behavior of Whites toward Blacks is some kind of ‘proof’ that Whites can be victimized by racism and racist attitudes as well.

This nonsense erupted in response to the emergence of Black Lives Matter following the execution of Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood-watch activist who happened to be walking around with a gun. “What do you mean, Black lives matter?” thundered Rush Limbaugh, “Don’t all lives matter?’ And since BLM is only concerned about their ‘own’ kind, this is proof pari passu that the organization’s perspective and strategies are racist to the core.

Now the fact is that police violence is endemic to inner-city communities where most African-Americans happen to live. The fact is, the fact is, the fact is, but who cares about facts when you can earn a living by running your mouth off on television and say whatever happens to be in your stupid head?

And the numbskull I am referring to is Rudy Giuliani, who went on Fox and accused BLM of being ‘inherently racist’ because the real danger of a Black kid getting shot was not from a cop but from another Black kid. So why does the BLM movement spend all its time talking about the behavior of racist cops? Because the cops are White, the BLM movement is Black, and it’s the racism of the BLM movement which keeps them from talking about Blacks shooting other Blacks.

I’m not trying to posture myself as an expert either on politics or race. My expertise extends only to the issue of guns. So I’m going to correct Rudy G not from a racial perspective, but from the facts (here’s that damn word again) about gun violence no matter whose skin color happens to be involved.

Gun violence between civilians is overwhelmingly intra-racial, and in eight out of ten instances gun violence occurs because two or more people get into an ongoing argument and sooner or later someone pulls out a gun. With whom do people have disputes? With people they know because they live together, or they live on the same block, or they go to the same school. And even if it’s an argument over drugs, Rudy’s favorite form of gun violence, the argument erupts between two members of the same gang.

On the other hand, police are supposed to be trained to keep the lid on disputes with citizens so that violence between law enforcement and civilians, particularly gun violence, is kept under control. If the shootings in Louisiana and Minneapolis are part of a wider problem of cops too often using their guns on minorities, than the problem has to be corrected now, and no amount of demagoguery from nincompoops like Giuliani should prevent that from taking place.