The urgent question in the United States is not whether violence in response to Ferguson or elsewhere is justified. That question distracts us from the more important issue of how to make sure that black men aren’t perceived as inherently criminal.
I don’t have a lot of hope that our white-saturated society is ever going to change, and at the same time it is crucial that one struggles for that change.
James Baldwin said it best when he argued that white people will have to learn how to love themselves and each other before they can let go of their need for black inferiority.