What happened in Minneapolis is just the latest example of uneven treatment. I would like to think it was a single rogue officer by his four partners who didn't intervene show its prevalent.
The fact that it happened and that it took time for the authorities to take action was worthy of outrage, but the rioting is also an outrage. In fact there are reports some of it was instigated by outside groups trying to spread chaos, not racial equality.
As long as police have an us vs them mentality we will have this problem. Deeper we have a society where inequality is related to skin tone.
The police jobs and other civil service jobs have historically represented a bridge to respectability. One of the issues plaguing this country is that opportunities for entry level workers have become very competitive.
Police jobs over the years have added requirements allegedly designed to get better candidates. Many of these requirements tend to disqualify many minorities, and whether they are actually needed should be studied. For example we clearly don't want serious criminals on the force, some infractions might not be disqualifying. In fact we might want to reconsider some assumptions to get local police actually local.
Police and the people they protect should share common background and beliefs. The system we have now works in white neighborhoods but becomes an occupying force in some others.
I'm not entirely sure the best way to fix it, but pretending it doesn't need to be fixed isn't going to do it.
All people are entitled to some inalienable rights, the first of which is life.
Too many are taken which shouldn't be.
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