Just in time for Black History Month, President Biden announced his racial equity agenda intended to improve the lives of those impacted by what his administration calls “systemic racism” and white supremacy. A bevy of new programs will be deployed to fight what the president characterizes as a “battle for the soul of America.” He’s even ordered the intelligence services to focus its attention on violent domestic extremism.  

Saving black lives, not racial gaslighting through the politics of distraction, is the best way to celebrate Black History Month. The Biden administration’s equity strategy and programs deserve to fail if they do not address the chronic problem of urban crime afflicting communities of color.

New statistics on urban crime lay bare the American carnage in disturbing detail. BLM, defend-the-police movements, and radical far-left district attorneys contributed to a climate of rising violence in 2020 without modern precedent.

The statistics are staggering. Murders were up 85 percent in Milwaukee. In Seattle, the increase was 63 percent. New York saw its numbers rise by 55 percent. Killings in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Austin, and Memphis grew by nearly 40 percent. 

The scale of the tragedy which unfolded on the streets of America’s cities in 2020 is almost incomprehensible, yet these thousands of deaths didn’t merit a mention by the occupant of the White House and his team. Instead, this administration doubled down on its charge that white supremacy is the greatest threat facing the public.

Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice didn’t mention the urban crime spikes either. Rice conducted a 10-minute interview with PBS but the tragedy of urban violence and increases in homicide rates never passed her lips. During a subsequent press conference on the Biden equity agenda, however, Rice did find time to mention the administration’s efforts to address the non-existent emergency of COVID-related xenophobia against Asian-Pacific Islander Americans.

By willfully ignoring the thousands of largely black and brown lives lost each year due to homicide, the Biden administration raises justifiable suspicion that it is more interested in deflection than saving lives. 

The facts are plain: white supremacists and cops didn’t kill these black and brown victims. Talk of “systemic racism” by Democrats is a cynical tool designed to silence the more uncomfortable conversation about the multi-generational dependency created by the government programs they developed.  

President Biden’s equity agenda doesn’t appear to be focused on realities, but rather the unfortunate and often insidious methodology of the left to divide people. We cannot address issues of equity or equality when politicians gloss over their chronic failures in favor of messaging that leads people to view themselves as separate or less capable, powerful, and self-reliant.

In 1951’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt, perhaps we get a glimpse into the mentality of this damaging approach. Arendt said “one of the primary concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring… isolation about… . Isolated men are powerless by definition.”

This is what victimhood culture is all about and history tells us that it doesn’t lead to empowerment. What also doesn’t work -- and is borderline suicidal for a democratic nation -- is telling huge segments of the population that they are racists. It undermines Dr. King’s vision for an America where content of character matters more than the color of one’s skin and drags us further down the road to permanent tribalism.

All sides fail when we sweep a crisis like urban violence under the rug in favor of feel-good policies that don’t address root causes effectively. Americans of all political stripes should work to ensure the violence on the streets of our cities isn’t ignored by this administration as it was by others. We must all work for an end to this American carnage as if our future depended on it, because in large measure it does.

Tom Basile is the host of Newsmax Television’s “America Right Now,” an author, and a columnist for the Washington Times. He served in the administration of George W. Bush. Learn more about him at www.TomBasile.com.