"The truth is there are two hundred white women raped in America by a black man for every one black woman raped by whites"

A sweeping numerical claim about interracial rape framed as a racial comparison functions less as information than as propaganda. It invokes a shocking ratio to trigger fear and moral panic, casting Black men as a collective threat and positioning white women as their primary victims while erasing violence against Black women. This framing has a long history in the United States: the stereotype of the Black male predator was used to rationalize lynching, segregation, and policing of Black mobility and sexuality. Ida B. Wells documented how such allegations were often fabricated or exaggerated to justify racial terror. The legacy persists in wrongful convictions disproportionately affecting Black men accused of assaulting white women.

Empirically, credible research does not support the claim. National crime victimization data consistently show that most sexual assaults are intraracial and committed by someone known to the victim. Interracial sexual violence exists, but sensationalized ratios ignore base rates, population sizes, and severe underreporting, especially among marginalized groups. They also blur the difference between raw counts and per-capita rates, opening the door to cherry-picking and distortions. The history of sexual violence against Black women, including during slavery and Jim Crow, was systematic and often unpunished, and contemporary underreporting further obscures the scope of harm. Reducing these realities to a single, incendiary statistic minimizes victims’ experiences and redirects attention away from prevention and support.

Such rhetoric assigns collective guilt to a racial group for the actions of individuals, a classic move in racist discourse. It primes audiences to accept punitive policies, disproportionate surveillance, and extrajudicial violence. It also undermines evidence-based approaches to addressing sexual violence, education, consent culture, survivor services, and offender accountability, by substituting fear with scapegoating. Responsible discussion requires careful use of reliable data, attention to context, and recognition that sexual violence is a pervasive problem rooted in power, proximity, and opportunity, not race. Claims designed to inflame racial hostility should be scrutinized for accuracy and for the social purposes they serve.