What conservative media are doing here is obvious — tendentiously bringing up white victims of police violence they would ordinarily ignore in an effort to derail the efforts of black protesters. But white people, especially poor ones, really do have cause to protest police brutality. White Americans ought to join up with their black fellow citizens not just in solidarity to eradicate the racism that saturates American policing, but also to overhaul the whole social structure that uses police and prisons to politically suppress the lower class.

As I have written before, one reason America has so much police violence is our extreme inequality. Both political parties have endorsed a modest rate of taxation of the rich, and a wretched, skinflint system of welfare and social services. Hence we have the highest inequality and the highest rate of poverty among rich nations. Inequality tears at the legitimacy of the political order, and poverty creates pockets of what amount to state collapse in the poorest locations. High poverty is associated with spectacularly higher rates of both committing and being victimized by crime, as well as being incarcerated (and almost certainly being killed by police).