Maybe it is an inevitable outcome of racial tension, which is as old as America itself with its origins in slavery and the aftermath of the slow progress of equal rights, that in towns like Ferguson Missouri from time to time things will flare up. But race riots in Baltimore? This does not play well for the international image of the U.S. It does not play well for the people involved either. For these protests are not about harassment by rednecks, which is bad enough, but about police brutality giving rise to loss of life. Loss of the lives of black Americans. It could not be worse.
Every so often America has to confront its racial divisions and prejudices and make amends. It then moves forward to better times, but very slowly slips back, making renewed action imperative. This time, and time for action is here again, there is something really fundamental about a civilized state being called into question: the integrity of its police forces. Americans must again join hands and move forward to a more open and enlightened interpretation of their relationships with each other. As they so often say ‘we are all Americans’. But a puzzled world is asking ‘are all Americans equal under the law?’ That is the question to which there does not seem to be a satisfactory answer. Yet.