Why Are Black Suicides Up So Much?

The NFL player Marshawn Kneeland car chase/suicide exemplifies two general trends.

From the New York Times news section:

A Touchdown, Then Tragedy, for a Man Who ‘Gave All He Could Give’

Marshawn Kneeland spent nearly all of his 24 years working to get to the N.F.L. He died two days after scoring his first touchdown.

By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

Reporting from Wyoming, Mich.

Nov. 17, 2025

A cadre of Dallas Cowboys players chased after the football as it tumbled into the end zone under the bright lights of “Monday Night Football.” In a flash, one player emerged in front of the pack — a 268-pound defensive end who smothered the ball for a touchdown.

To most Cowboys fans, it was 6 points scored on a blocked punt. But to many in western Michigan, it was the culmination of a lifetime of hard work for the funny but quiet, sports- and video-games-obsessed guy they knew, Marshawn Kneeland, who had spent 24 years outrunning circumstances, loss and doubt to make the N.F.L.

That touchdown on Nov. 3 was his first in the league, and the congratulatory texts flooded in, including from one of his college coaches. The next day, Mr. Kneeland was still buzzing from the touchdown, and he told the coach, Lou Esposito, that he planned to come back to Michigan that week. Mr. Kneeland said he had something to share. Mr. Esposito asked him what it was. “Good news,” he responded.

Two nights later, Mr. Kneeland was dead, following what the authorities in Texas said was a police chase, a crash and, then, a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The case raised questions that have yet to be answered, in part because the authorities have released few details about what happened after officers tried to pull him over for a traffic violation. Why did Mr. Kneeland try to flee, and why did he have a gun in the car?

Because he was a criminal?

Seriously, this is an example of how the young black male suicide rate has gone up a lot in the last decade for reasons that nobody seems to understand.

And the young black male traffic fatality rate shot up during the George Floyd racial reckoning for reasons that I, but few other pundits, understand: the cops stopped pulling over black bad drivers a few days after May 25, 2020.

But it has since gone down for the same reason black homicide deaths have declined: nobody cares about Black Lives Matter anymore, so black lives are being spared.