THE REAL WAR ON BLACK MEN: Hard Data, Hollow Protests. The death toll from Black Lives Matter (and its shills in the NFL and the media) continues to grow, as Heather Mac Donald writes in City Journal:

The FBI released its official crime tally for 2016 today, and the data flies in the face of the rhetoric that professional athletes rehearsed in revived Black Lives Matter protests over the weekend.  Nearly 900 additional blacks were killed in 2016 compared with 2015, bringing the black homicide-victim total to 7,881. Those 7,881 “black bodies,” in the parlance of Ta-Nehisi Coates, are 1,305 more than the number of white victims (which in this case includes most Hispanics) for the same period, though blacks are only 13 percent of the nation’s population. The increase in black homicide deaths last year comes on top of a previous 900-victim increase between 2014 and 2015.

Who is killing these black victims? Not whites, and not the police, but other blacks. In 2016, the police fatally shot 233 blacks, the vast majority armed and dangerous, according to the Washington Post. The Post categorized only 16 black male victims of police shootings as “unarmed.” That classification masks assaults against officers and violent resistance to arrest. Contrary to the Black Lives Matter narrative, the police have much more to fear from black males than black males have to fear from the police. In 2015, a police officer was 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male was to be killed by a police officer. Black males have made up 42 percent of all cop-killers over the last decade, though they are only 6 percent of the population. That 18.5 ratio undoubtedly worsened in 2016, in light of the 53 percent increase in gun murders of officers—committed vastly and disproportionately by black males. Among all homicide suspects whose race was known, white killers of blacks numbered only 243. . . .

Four studies came out in 2016 alone rebutting the charge that police shootings are racially biased. If there is a bias in police shootings, it works in favor of blacks and against whites. That truth has not stopped the ongoing demonization of the police—including, now, by many of the country’s ignorant professional athletes. The toll will be felt, as always, in the inner city, by the thousands of law-abiding people there who desperately want more police protection.

Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James could not be reached for comment.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: The Politicization Of Everything.

Healthy democracies have ample room for politics but leave a larger space for civil society and culture that unites more than divides. With the politicization of the National Football League and the national anthem, the Divided States of America are exhibiting a very unhealthy level of polarization and mistrust.

The progressive forces of identity politics started this poisoning of America’s favorite spectator sport last year by making a hero of Colin Kaepernick for refusing to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner” before games. They raised the stakes this year by turning him into a progressive martyr because no team had picked him up to play quarterback after he opted out of his contract with the San Francisco 49ers.

The NFL is a meritocracy, and maybe coaches and general managers thought he wasn’t good enough for the divisions he might cause in a locker room or among fans. But the left said it was all about race and class.

All of this is cultural catnip for Donald Trump, who pounced on Friday night at a rally and on the weekend on Twitter with his familiar combination of gut political instinct, rhetorical excess, and ignorance. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s fired,’” Mr. Trump said Friday.

No doubt most Americans agree with Mr. Trump that they don’t want their flag disrespected, especially by millionaire athletes. But Mr. Trump never stops at reasonable, and so he called for kneeling players to be fired or suspended, and if the league didn’t comply for fans to “boycott” the NFL.

Well, Trump’s got his opponents arguing against the National Anthem, so maybe he’s not as dumb as you think. But whenever you wonder why we’re in a situation where Trump’s driving this sort of narrative, remember that we got Trump because the respectable political class did such a sorry job that there was an opening for Trump.

MICHAEL WALSH: Farewell to the NFL.

But if you ask this former fan, the rot runs deeper. Football, which is practically the state religion in Texas and across the South, used to be closely tied up with patriotism and love of country. The militaristic component of the sport, which was presented as akin to war, appealed especially to red-state dwellers. But sportscasters and sportswriters are overwhelmingly leftist in their outlook, and their eagerness to turn Kaepernick into a civil-rights icon has repelled a sizable section of football’s core audience — and one that, by the current evidence is growing.

Tomorrow is going to be fascinating. Choose wisely, Roger Goodell and team owners.

FINALLY: These White People Will Respond To Your Racist Trolls So You Don’t Have To.

The volunteer-run Facebook group, founded last year by friends Layla Tromble and Terri Kompton in Washington state, has white people respond to racist trolls online at the request of people of color.

“If a white person is filling your social media with white nonsense ― anything from overt racism to well-intentioned problematic statements, tag us and a white person will come roundup our own,” the group’s Facebook post reads.

At a time of deep political divides and tensions around racism and white supremacy, the group exists to support people of color, who are all too often the targets of online hate but are also often asked by white people to explain everyday race-related issues, from why NFL player Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to why you can’t just touch a black woman’s hair.

“It’s the responsibility of us white folks to do the emotional labor that’s required to educate other white folks ― and it shouldn’t be required of people of color again and again,” Tromble told HuffPost. “One of the goals of the service is to do some of that labor for people. Let them go have a drink and not worry about nonsense going on on their Facebook.”

It occurs to me that a group of counter-counter trolls could keep these people busy chasing ghosts, and maybe even their own tails.

PEOPLE ARE TUNING OUT ON ENTERTAINMENT SHOWS BECAUSE THEY AREN’T ENTERTAINING: The Great Tune Out.

Though adjustments may change the preliminary verdict, this year’s Emmys are set to underperform even last year’s all-time low ratings. Maybe the politics on display were irrelevant; maybe the rise of streaming services has made traditional broadcast television a dying product. Maybe. But the Emmys misfortunes are of a familiar sort. This tune out is starting to feel like a trend.

In August, at just 5.4 million viewers, MTV’s Music Video Awards turned in their lowest ratings of all time. Occurring just days after a white-supremacist terrorist attack on peaceful demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, that event was explicitly political. But it was hard to avoid the impression it would have been political even absent events in Charlottesville.

Awardees delivered homilies praising NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick for refusing to stand for the American national anthem and the network played a song titled “f*** Donald Trump” into breaks. For the first time, MTV presented an award for “Best Fight Against the System.” Host Katy Perry, a prominent member of Hillary Clinton’s squad of celebrity surrogates, displayed blinding originality when she joked about appearing in “Handmaid’s Tale” regalia and added that the VMAs was “one election where the popular vote actually matters.”

For months, liberal media outlets have contorted themselves into pretzels to support the claim that the sports network ESPN is not liberal, and conservatives who perceive it to be are addlebrained conspiracy theorists. Nevertheless, ESPN’s former personalities and even its regular viewers—according to a study commissioned by the network—don’t agree. Meanwhile, the network is laying off employees in droves, advertisers are panicking, and its ratings are cratering—the second quarter of 2017 was its least-watched Q2 in four years. Last week, ESPN John Skipper was compelled to admit that the network’s politicization is not a figment of conservative imaginations. “ESPN is not a political organization,” he wrote in a letter to his employees. “ESPN is about sports.” He continued, “we are a journalistic organization and that we should not do anything that undermines that position.”

Even Hollywood is feeling the crunch. The summer of 2017 was the worst performing summer for domestic box office releases in years. “Without a film debuting widely over the Labor Day weekend, Box-office Media predicts the film industry will end the summer of 2017 with sales down by up to 15 percent,” Bloomberg reported. Contrary to some recent revisionism, the films that were released this summer were well-regarded and scored well among reviewers. It’s possible this collapse is unrelated to an epidemic of performing artists lecturing America on its lack of a “moral foundation,” the “cancer” afflicting its politics, and the deteriorating race relations. But what if it’s not?

A lot of people don’t want to support the enemy, and they’re pretty convinced that Hollywood sees them as enemies.

Related:

‘WE CAN KEEP AMERICA GREAT:’ Browns Lock Arms with Police and Military During Anthem.

In other news from the AFC North Division: Franco Harris Says Mean Joe Greene, Lambert Would Have Handled Kaepernick in Their Day.

Not to mention, Chuck Noll.

THIS EXPLAINS MUCH ABOUT THE LAST DECADE IN PRO FOOTBALL. Roger Goodell When Asked About Colin Kaepernick: “I’m Not A Football Expert.”

TO BE FAIR, IT’S NOT LIKE NFL MANAGEMENT COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING: ‘For Me, It’s Personal.’ NFL Fans Boycott Football As Colin Kaepernick Goes Unemployed.

TO BE FAIR, THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE NFL IS HISTORY. Smithsonian National Museum of African American History to feature Colin Kaepernick artifacts: “The free agent quarterback who has yet to find a team for the upcoming 2017 NFL season will feature prominently at the African American history museum, which previously neglected to acknowledge Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.”

Related: Frank Serpico, NYPD cops raise their fists, take a knee for team-less Colin Kaepernick at Brooklyn rally.

Because Kap is such a law and order kind of guy.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING:

● Shot: “Dallas Cowboys: Why did Cowboys sign Luke McCown over Colin Kaepernick?”

—The Dallas Morning News, July 29th.

● Chaser: “Colin Kaepernick’s reported girlfriend tweeted out pictures Wednesday that appear to compare Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti and Ray Lewis to a slave owner and slave.”

—Baltimore CBS affiliate WJZ-TV, today.

THIS IS PRETTY MUCH TRUE WHENEVER THE SJWs ATTACK AN INSTITUTION: Politicize Sports, Pay the Price.

Evergreen tweet:

ANALYSIS: TRUE. “Middle America wants to pop a beer and listen to sports talk, they don’t want to be lectured about why Caitlyn Jenner is a hero, Michael Sam is the new Jackie Robinson of sports, and Colin Kaepernick is the Rosa Parks of football. ESPN made the mistake of trying to make liberal social media losers happy and as a result lost millions of viewers.”

But leftist SJW losers are apparently ESPN’s management as well, and they don’t seem to mind their audience becoming more selective, as Ian Faith would say, as long as “those people” out there in the hinterlands aren’t tuning in.

And increasingly, their on-air talent is admitting to just that.

HOWIE CARR OFFERS REMEDIAL EDUCATION FOR TREVOR NOAH:

What is an “extreme liberal”?

That was the question posed the other night on one of those late-night talk shows nobody watches by someone named Trevor Noah, or maybe it was Noah Trevor.

“I go like, what is an extreme liberal,” he said. “Like, what is that?”

Like, you’re kidding dude, right? I don’t think he’s an American, and he doesn’t seem very funny.

“What is this thing you’re afraid of?” he went on. “Health care for everybody, free education, is that what you’re afraid of?”

Free education. Yeah right. I wonder what Noah Trevor got on his SATs.

Anyway, perhaps this foreign fop needs some free education as to what an extreme liberal is.

An extreme liberal is someone like Leonardo DiCaprio, who flies around on his private jet delivering impassioned speeches on the dangers of climate change.

He or she still has a Hillary Clinton bumper sticker on the family Tesla, right next to “COEXIST.”

They run through the streets rioting and setting fires and yelling “Smash the State!” and then when they get arrested, they write on Facebook how “terrified” they are of going to jail just before spring break.

They believe that Christian bakers who won’t provide wedding cakes to lesbians should be imprisoned, but unvetted Muslim “refugees” who believe in stoning gays, Sharia law, female-genital mutilation and honor killings should be admitted to the U.S. and put on welfare, no questions asked.

Anyone who has a different point of view from them is “Hitler.”

They still really believe Elizabeth Warren is Cherokee.

They think Obama deserved his Nobel Peace Prize.

They call anyone who disagrees with Hillary a sexist, with Obama a racist, and with Barney Frank a homophobe.

They love soccer and hate football — except for Colin Kaepernick.

I think it’s too bad that late night “comedians” have just become people who disseminate hate against The Other.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON ON TRUMP AND THE AMERICAN DIVIDE:

As the nation became more urban and its wealth soared, the old Democratic commitment from the Roosevelt era to much of rural America—construction of water projects, rail, highways, land banks, and universities; deference to traditional values; and Grapes of Wrath–like empathy—has largely been forgotten. A confident, upbeat urban America promoted its ever more radical culture without worrying much about its effects on a mostly distant and silent small-town other. In 2008, gay marriage and women in combat were opposed, at least rhetorically, by both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their respective presidential campaigns. By 2016, mere skepticism on these issues was viewed by urban elites as reactionary ignorance. In other words, it was bad enough that rural America was getting left behind economically; adding insult to injury, elite America (which is Democrat America) openly caricatured rural citizens’ traditional views and tried to force its own values on them. Lena Dunham’s loud sexual politics and Beyoncé’s uncritical evocation of the Black Panthers resonated in blue cities and on the coasts, not in the heartland. Only in today’s bifurcated America could billion-dollar sports conglomerates fail to sense that second-string San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s protests of the national anthem would turn off a sizable percentage of the National Football League’s viewing audience, which is disproportionately conservative and middle American. These cultural themes, too, Trump addressed forcefully.

Read the whole thing.

ROLL CALL: How Tomi Lahren Could Get Elected to Congress.

With millions of video views and hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers, young Tomi Lahren is leaving her mark on the political world from her new media perch on the right. Could Congress be next?

Lahren is no stranger to Republicans, conservatives, and Donald Trump supporters. Her “Final Thoughts” segment chastising San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for protesting racial injustice by sitting during the national anthem has been viewed more than 66 million times on Facebook.

The confrontational 24-year old was introduced to the rest of the country (and the rest of the ideological spectrum) recently with a profile in The New York Times, “Young, Vocal and the Right’s Rising Media Star,” and a 26-minute sparring match with Trevor Noah on “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central.

If she wants it, Lahren would have a plausible path to Congress.

She is a native of Rapid City, South Dakota. And less than a week after winning re-election last month, GOP Rep. Kristi Noem of South Dakota announced she would leave her at-large district at the end of her term to run for governor in 2018.

With Trump’s 62 percent to 32 percent victory over Hillary Clinton in the Mount Rushmore State and Noem’s 64 percent to 36 percent re-election victory, the battle for the congresswoman’s seat will essentially take place in the Republican primary.

Lahren has the opportunity to overwhelm the field.

Well, stay tuned.

LIFE (AND DEATH) BEFORE THE FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION: Pearl Harbor vets ‘Never took a knee. Never failed to stand during national anthem.’ Colin Kaepernick zinged by Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr. at Pearl Harbor.