Race riots in Missouri - King would recognise this hatred

"A riot," said Martin Luther King, "is the language of the unheard."

Whether the iconic civil rights leader would recognise the violence in Ferguson, Missouri as a consequence of political failure, a matter of social failure or just the most hateful realities of being human expressed through racism is hardly as important as the tragic fact that, 46 years after his assassination in Tennessee today’s sad scene, the violence and the hatred, would be heartbreakingly familiar.

That tragedy might be felt even more deeply if Rev King could understand that today America is led by a second-term black president. How could it be explained that this point in the world’s foremost — still — superpower’s development had been reached but that the old, dark fears and injustices are still powerful, forces playing out their sinister game?