An interesting study came out a few months ago from a group called the Equal Justice Initiative based in Montgomery, Alabama. The detailed report, “Lynching In America: Confronting The Legacy of Racial Terror,” involved the history of lynchings in our corner of the United States, the result of five years of research and 160 visits to sites around the South.

The authors of the report compiled an inventory of 3,959 victims of “racial terror lynchings” in 12 Southern states from 1877 to 1950. (The entire report can be accessed at eji.org.)

It is a horrifically educational piece that I strongly urge adults of conscience to read. Be warned that it does come with graphic photographs and distasteful reminders of America’s tainted past as it pertains to racial violence.

While the report does bring some relief in the knowledge that the documented “indefensible evil” that was a routine part of the American landscape many decades ago is long gone, it also brings home the startling truth alluded to in the headline above. As bad as things were for black citizens in America for hundreds of years, the violence we see in Chicago alone these days dwarfs the infamous Southern lynchings detailed over a 73-year period.

Again to compare, the EJI report tells us there were 3,959 “racial terror lynchings” of blacks in that time. That averages out to about 55 lynchings a year.

In 2014 there were 353 known black murder victims in Chicago, arguably one of the most dangerous cities of its size in the world. In 2015 (as of press time), Chicago has recorded the murders of 282 black victims, well on their way to outpacing last year’s total.

It is a reputation that it has been earning for generations. During Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley’s 22-year run as a very popular and respected city leader, there were 14,653 murders. That is more than three times all the “southern lynchings” documented for the seven decades covered in the report.

I choose the Windy City to illustrate a long-standing point that is apparently in great need of publicity. Beautiful Chicago, with all of its gifted and enlightened liberal leaders, remains one of the most dangerous places in America. Hand guns are, for the most part, banned, yet somehow the killings there continue at a record pace.

So far this year, someone is shot in Chicago every three hours and 16 minutes. There is a human that dies from gunshots in Chicago every 18 hours. That is all week, every week, so far in 2015. Because there are so many “uncleared” murders in Chicago, it is difficult to get a handle on what percentage of the victims are killed by what race, but the FBI reports nationally (in 2013 crime reports) that the black on black murder rate is slightly north of 90 percent.

But for some strange reason, the tragic deaths of nine black South Carolinians at the hands of a confirmed racist has garnered far more national media attention than the decades-long homicide insanity that plays out annually in our country’s third-largest city.

Why is that? Because it is a much better story to illustrate what America’s predominant, left-leaning media wants you to believe, which is that black lives matter more when they are taken by white killers.

The homicide rate for American black males is 31.7 per 100,000 (2011 figures). That is almost 10 times the rate compared to white males, which is 3.9 per 100,000.

I have waxed long and eloquent on these pages about the huge double standard that exists in this country when it comes to political speech and even humorous rhetoric and what those on the left can get away with versus those on the right. But when it comes to murder, can we stop with the fudging?

On a much lighter subject, Trent Lott was shunned and run out of his Senate leadership position because of a tongue-in-cheek reference to Strom Thurmond’s civil rights battles at his retirement party, but Rev. Jesse Jackson was none the worse for the wear when he referred to New York as “Hymie Town.”

Rush Limbaugh was excoriated for running a parody song called “Barack the Magic Negro,” while his critics failed to mention the song’s title and theme was taken from a March 2007 L.A. Times opinion column of the same name by left-leaning editorialist David Ehrenstein.

Dare we mention the pass Senator Robert Byrd got on his days as a real member of the Ku Klux Klan, or the hideous record with women that the Kennedys and President Bill Clinton have left for the history books. Hell, the man in charge of the State of South Carolina at the time that notorious Confederate Battle Flag went up on top of the State Capitol in Columbia was none other than Fritz Hollings. Yep, the same guy who spent the next four decades in the U.S. Senate representing the Palmetto State as a left-of-center Democrat! How left of center was he? So far left that he endorsed Jesse Jackson in the 1988 Democratic Presidential Primary!

The mainstream media is replete with examples of duplicitous reporting on issues concerning insensitivity, sexism and outrageous personal behavior. Can’t they please get it right when dealing with homicide?

After all, the thousands and thousands of lives of black victims matter, even when they are murdered at a clip of 90 percent by black killers.