To American Whites, collectively, a Black kid shot by cops is a shrug, a shake of the head. To Blacks it can lead to uncompressed fury, as in the recent Cincinnati riots. When Whites are shot by Blacks the roles reverse, but instead of rioting the Whites use other means of response, administering collective punishment slowly, almost accidentally via the police, the mayor's office, TV cameras, and printing presses. Whites' car windows are rolled up driving through a Black part of town, doors locked, kachunk. Property values lower.
Police stop listening.
Ambulances and fire engines come slowly. We do not block off towns and insist travelers show their papers. We rarely put tanks on the streets, and only a few times have we bombed from the air. Most American cities are slow centrifuges, splitting out the colors over dozens, or hundreds of years, sending the middle class to the suburbs, among the banks and schools, and leaving the poor in the cities with the dollar stores. But the centrifuge is always spinning, moving, changing even though it has slowed in the last 40 years.