In light of Andy Ngo’s twitter suspension:

I looked at the context, and there was some relevance to the fact that the trans black women murders are mostly done by black men. But I wish we were much more careful when citing racially inflammatory statistics, even when true.

In this case it would have been better to take more space and say:

“While the fact that most trans women who are murdered are black might make you think these are racially motivated murders, in fact it’s because these crimes mostly occur within black communities” or something.

I’m getting comments about how why Andy said was true, and therefore can’t be inflammatory.

I’ll admit, the fact that it’s true makes it waaay better. If it was false, that would be an awful error.

But facts can still be inflammatory depending on context.

If I posted an engagement photo with my hypothetical black fiancé, and my friend commented citing facts of black iq rates, that could be true and inflammatory.

If repeated it could be harassment (while still being accurate).

So, I’m not asking that people lie or avoid the truth, but with sensitive topics like this I wish we took more care to point out the relevance. Why is he saying these murders are done by black men? The relevance is based on something implicit and subtle. It’s worth articulating.