As this thread grows I see significant discussion over justification. Don’t look for justification. The people committing these acts are lawbreakers and will be dealt with as such. The bomb has gone off. The system has failed and the time to intervene is passed. Now we deal with the fallout.

These communities, Ferguson and Baltimore, are not alone. This will continue as long as there is no mass escape route from the poverty and racial isolation in these areas. Sure, the individual has a choice, and America loves a by-the-bootsraps success story, but for the majority the pitfalls are much more common than opportunities. My time in the “brick cities” of South Carolina exposed me to extreme poverty and racial segregation. After spending time there I began to realize that the only interaction these people had with whites was the police force and the courts. White people didn’t venture into these neighborhoods unless their job forced them to (me included) and their schools are basically blacks only. These people are isolated. Most had never truly had any meaningful interaction with whites in the surrounding communities. This isolation breeds resentment.

A large part of the people living in these areas were severely under-educated. Communication was difficult. They had been brought up with a very literal sense communication. Directions and talking about the physical world was tolerable, but talking about anything in the abstract was next to impossible. They simply could not understand. When communication became difficult I attempted to rephrase and this, as expected, was met with frustration, which then turned to hostility. Somewhere an education system has failed these poor minds. There were many bright people in these areas as well, however, they lived among predators. This was not simply a “shitty situation” it was a system of predation. The motto was hunt or be hunted. I watched as the most capable of these individuals were poached by the local crime groups. These groups then taught them to exploit the less intelligent to survive. This was an entire community chewing itself up in isolation while the rest of the world went on like nothing was wrong. The solution to these situations is education and exposure to other cultures. With education and exposure the fuses on these time bombs can be extinguished for the safety of us all.