Its politics because race relations and conflict in America are political. It is and has always been the fundamental political reality of life in the United States. It affects everything and everything hinges on it.

Race has become associated with ideology. The left seizes on racism to bludgeon the right and discredit all their ideology, policies and proposals, even if they have no racial component to them. It gives the left an imagined moral superiority to the right that the right resents bitterly. The right insists black crime and poverty is the cause of all America's problems, rather than the result of it. And they feel they are being forced to suffer from crime, drugs, violence and the high costs of welfare because complaining about it will be attacked as racism. In the south, particularly, blacks resent the whites because they see them as an oppressor and a bully who holds all the cards of money, power and the law. Whites fear the blacks as a violent and turbulent cancer on society and as a subhuman species genetically incapable of human decency. The post WWII black migration to the cities and the subsequent white flight to the suburbs further isolated the races.

Conservatives blame social problems in the black community on welfare benefits sapping the ambition and desire of people to work. Liberals blame those same problems on racism and the aggressive marketing of addictive drugs to the black community. They're probably both right.

Both sides are hyper-sensitive and any incident can be blown out of proportion, while both sides are ready to make excuses for crimes committed by their side as being exaggerations and over-reactions by the other, or justified as responses to the outrages of the other side. Individual whites and blacks may realize this, and make a conscious effort to avoid it affecting their relations with individuals of the other race. But an incident like this breaks loose all the old prejudices and they come floating to the surface again.

Am I exaggerating the situation with these remarks and observations? Of course. Not everyone is either a monster or a saint. But humans as groups display little subtlety and complexity. They view each other as cliches and stereotypes.

I've watched this situation develop since the Civil Rights era. Prior to that time, the black community was quiet, docile, and kept to themselves, at least, as far as the whites were concerned. "They" were invisible. If there was any trouble, police brutality and the threat of lynchings kept it in the ghetto. Segregation meant we didn't have to deal with it.

Now, the situation is walking down our streets every night.