So these are the truths. Police have shot unarmed black citizens, violating their constitutional and human rights. But citizens, black and white, are also shooting each other in a rising tide of lawlessness that seems to have been enabled by police timidity. There both is overreaction by the authorities and under-reaction, and both are shaped by the politics of race.

This is really when the politicians should step in. Isn’t it leadership to cross the line of partisanship and tell one’s own constituency that they might be wrong? When rioting broke out in Los Angeles in 1992, that’s exactly what candidate Bill Clinton did. He talked about police brutality as a cause, yes, but also joblessness, single parenthood and declining respect for authority. Civil Rights activists accused him of selling them out – and there’s no denying that the Clintons will do anything for a vote.