Name:   architect - Subject:   wondering Date:   6/23/2015 6:00:08 PM (updated 6/23/2015 6:02:45 PM)

I don't think it can be assumed that if the same thing happened in Chicago etc that the reaction would have been violent rather than unifying.  The event in Charleston was NOT at all the same as the events in Baltimore, Furguson, NYC and, for that matter, North Charleston.  A cop shooting a black kid on the street may be seen by Middle class whites as similar to a white nut citizen killing 9 respected black citizen as they worshipped, but the black community likely has a much more nuanced reaction.  I recall a white person shot and killed Dr. Martin Luther King's mother in church years ago.  The reaction among the black community of Atlanta was, thankfully, very different then than it was a few years later after the Rodney King verdict. A communitie's reaction to an event is always colored by the event itself or by how the event is perceived. If the perception, correctly or incorrectly, is of unjust treatment by authority the reaction is likely to be much less positive than if the event is seen as an action of a nutcase.  Also, remember the militant reaction to Furguson was to a considerable extent bi-racial.  The same is true in Charleston but with a very different outcome.