nealbie said:
Not going to even pretend to understand how **** up America is over issues like race. Mind you, we had riots in 2011 over something almost identical. Only difference being when the courts decided the policeman was right to shoot him, there weren't more riots, the decision was accepted.
I think Snoo hinted at the reasons really. I suspect people forget how recently segregation in the US actually ended, and how ingrained in living memory hatred (or at least thinking of coloured people as lesser humans) is in a huge swathe of the American population. Okay, black society was given equal rights with the white society 50 years(ish) ago, but that doesn't mean that they were then elevated to the same society and opportunities as the rest of the populace.
{I guess over here we have the working class/benefits society in a similar (if much more pleasant) situation. How do you break out of the council estate loop when your life is ingrained in it for generations?}
The governments offer opportunities, but it's for the select few with the positive mental or character traits that can actually get out.
So over the years, there's a social underclass that can't see a way out, that live poorly compared to the rest of the country and who's only fault is the family and are they were born into. There's a lot of resentment towards those "who have" and those who have REALLY have. Once the resentment kicks in, it spreads. You have a powder keg and then any excuse to be incited to violence. What the actual spark is doesn't matter (and will probably miss the point), but it just needs "a thing" for the resentment to spill over into violence. It's about decades of the comfortably well off looking down on others who have no chance to escape because of the ever widening gap between the rich and poor. After a series of recessions, it looks even worse and there's more chance of things blowing up.
In essence, equality is a lie and it pisses people off. Add in ready availability of guns and generally more violent outlook to life and it's much worse.