The media frenzy about a purported race “crisis” due to white cops killing young black males ignores basic facts. There is no evidence at all of a dramatic surge in police violence against blacks: Justice Department numbers show a steady average of less than 100 such deaths per year.

Of course, every unnecessary loss is a tragedy, but the obsessive focus on deadly confrontations between African-Americans and police creates fear and hostility that only make other confrontations more likely. It also hides dramatic progress: in the last few years, African Americans were three times more likely to win admission to Yale or Harvard than to die at the hands of a police officer. The number of blacks with college diplomas—Associates, Bachelor’s degrees or higher—was seven times greater than the number currently incarcerated in jails or prisons.

Now that’s success worth celebrating.