US Race Riots: The Crux of the Problem
We tend to view riots, such as those taking place across America at this moment, in terms of their primary causes; in this instance, there's the case of George Floyd, an African-American man suffocated by a police officer during an arrest in Minneapolis last week. Generally speaking, commentators and even participants take the surface level approach that the primary cause of such unrest is police brutality. They may even go as far as to reference something more broad, like institutionalised racism or the prevailing social attitudes of that which they are against. It's symptomatic of the world today that we can't steel ourselves to delve deeper into these events and diagnose the real sickness, instead preferring sources that give us someone tangible to blame. The commonality running through the protests right now, and other protests with a racial bent in America over the years, as well as Britain and other places east of the Atlantic, is a sense of powerlessness felt by pa