The London riots offer a clear window into one aspect of the Great Divide; does understanding the motivations of rioters encourages them and that the rioters are all just criminals. I would not want to advertise that my city has 10,000 criminals just waiting for, what?, to destroy. If there is no underlying truth beneath the riots then your city has thousands of "super-predators" teenagers who destroy with no provocation. I listen to a British Dept Mayor Kit Malthouse say we should think of all the kids who go to school and behave. This kind of thinking flows effortlessly into a concept some are born bad, or less than human. This attitude allowed Britain to rule millions of people in Asia and Africa brutally yet consider them selves the crown of creation, the highest, best thing that (post Spencer) ever evolved. We see this today.
I know little about the protestor/riotors, who are probably different people. But we get sick of Police killing our kids, especially the young, dark and male. To not realize that people are not in the street every day, even if they are bad seeds. It is willful ignorance of the continuing fallout from the British Emire