Attorney General Henry McMaster said Wednesday that black women are more likely than whites to be victims of domestic violence, and he is seeking federal money to combat the problem.

McMaster said an analysis of five years of State Law Enforcement Division data from 1996 through 2000 found that nonwhite women are two to 3½ times as likely to report domestic violence as white women.

"What this means to me is that black women are calling for help at a rate 2½ times that of whites," McMaster told an annual meeting of domestic violence activists.

McMaster's remarks left some activists questioning the statistics and worried that domestic violence, which they say "cuts across all racial, income and education lines," might become entangled in racial politics.

Addressing those concerns, McMaster said, "This is ... the only factual data that we have. People can draw their own conclusions from that."

McMaster's office is seeking a $900,000 federal grant to hire three full-time prosecutors in seven rural Pee Dee counties, most of which are predominantly black. They would prosecute only domestic violence cases.

"We're going to go where we are called," said McMaster, who was honored at Wednesday's annual meeting of the S.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault, an organization for activists.

Andrea Loney is a black attorney with the S.C. Centers for Equal Justice who has worked in the domestic violence field 23 years. She said she questioned the statistics.

"I'm concerned about putting a color on domestic violence," Loney said. "I don't want us to take the view that it's a problem over there."

Vicki Bourus, director of the statewide advocacy organization, said she does not doubt McMaster's commitment to fighting domestic violence.

Yet, "we cannot allow this issue to become a racial hot button," said Bourus, who is white. "It has got to stay focused on domestic violence."

Reports from the state's 19 shelters indicate that white and black women seek help in proportion to the community in which they lived, Bourus said.

Her experience indicates that black women might call police or go to court more readily because they have fewer choices, she said.

Bourus and other advocates said white women, who tend to have more resources to leave home or hire attorneys, would be less likely to call police, which is the basis of the data McMaster used.

"That doesn't necessarily translate into a worse problem for them," Bourus said of black women.

McMaster acknowledged the statistics do not account for unreported attacks.

Sandra Hickmon prosecuted domestic violence cases in Newberry, Laurens, Greenwood and Abbeville counties for four years until 2002.

Hickmon, who is black, said she saw more black women victims than whites, even though the judicial circuit where she worked is predominantly white. But the explanation for that includes the economic status of the victims as well as the different ways police handle domestic violence calls involving whites or blacks, Hickmon said.

They are more likely to make an arrest in a black home, she said.

Nancy Barton is director of Sistercare, which serves women victims in five Midlands counties. Barton, who is white, worries that what McMaster said could be misinterpreted.

"I have spent time trying to break the stereotype of what a battered woman is," Barton said. "What I know is that domestic violence crosses all racial, economic, educational and religious lines."

"I think it's a sensitive issue," she said. "I think people could misconstrue his intention."