In a deeply insightful column, Thomas Sowell offers an observation that should be obvious to everyone:

“[C]ommunities scattered across the country were disrupted by riots and looting because of the demonstrable lie that Michael Brown was shot in the back by a white policeman in Missouri — but there was not nearly as much turmoil created by the demonstrable fact that a fleeing black man was shot dead by a white policeman in South Carolina.”  (Emphasis added.)

Mr. Sowell goes on to make the point that the grievance industry cares about neither truth nor justice.  A guilty white cop indicted for killing an innocent black man isn’t newsworthy; an innocent white cop exonerated for killing a black criminal is cause for moral outrage.

And this is what is all comes down to:  self-serving leaders and rabblerousers want outrage.  They want to rail against the unfairness of it all, against the gap between rich and poor, against the indignity of stop-and-frisk, against the “legacy of slavery.”  What they don’t want is to search for solutions, much less find them.  That would mean an end to the victim-culture that has allowed them to exploit the disadvantages of their own brethren for their own profit and power.

“In a world where the truth means so little, and headstrong preconceptions seem to be all that matter, what hope is there for rational words or rational behavior, much less mutual understanding across racial lines?”

Let’s hope Mr. Sowell’s lament isn’t the sad epitaph for any hope of achieving, or restoring, a civil society.