The reason that racial division is so profound in the US is because it goes all the way back to slavery. There has never been closure. It is an open and suppurating wound

South Africa was able to achieve what seemed impossible - to get closure on apartheid (which in reality is what you had in the US after abolition and all the way right through to living memory) - by its Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Until the US recognises and addresses this with its own appropriate healing process, the American racial wound will never be healed, and division and conflict will continue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_%28South_Africa%29

The reason that racial division is so profound in the US is because it goes all the way back to slavery. There has never been closure. It is an open and suppurating wound

 

South Africa was able to achieve what seemed impossible - to get closure on apartheid (which in reality is what you had in the US after abolition and all the way right through to living memory) - by its Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Until the US recognises and addresses this with its own appropriate healing process, the American racial wound will never be healed, and division and conflict will continue.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_%28South_Africa%29

Attempts have been made, but ultimately, there are only a few compromises that can be reached with money alone. There are programs in the US for minority students in college enrollment along with federal aid to pay for higher education that aid minority students.

As for direct aid, currently welfare participation is around 39-40% for blacks as well as white identified racial populations, but black population is only 13-14% of the total population compared to 77-78% white. Welfare is more than just a check nowadays after the Great Recession, it also includes trade retraining and re-education for potential unemployed or under employed peoples. Still despite economic

Money and opportunities can only solve some long standing racial economic issue, but there's been a dangerous idea that it has made people colorblind.

I think a false presumption exists within Capitalism and "Free Market" ideology that as long as you have the means, you should socially be equal to a peer of the same ethnic/racial background. I disagree with this wholeheartedly, because while you may point to certain people in the community as leaders with high ranking like President Obama himself, or in Baltimore the Police Commissioner Angthony Batts, or heck the Mayor is also black along with most of the city's council members, a majority is still poor and socially unable to move up. The racism is not about opportunity or power, but inequal and injustice created by the cure to racial tensions in the 1960's.

The solution of South Africa has not worked for the US.

The LA Times clear cuts that Baltimore is by in large both politically and racially  mixed in terms of political power. Our racial problems are not about Whites oppressing blacks or blacks crying feigning persecution, but something else entirely.

I think the US and Europe too has fallen into perverse problems created by their own institutions that leave far too many people out as marginalized segments of society. Whether it is blacks in the US or Muslims in Europe, you have to admit there is a longstanding problem that must be solved.

While naysayers can point to a beacon of hope and leadership as an example, but if your society does not fix systemic poverty on racial lines, any amount of pyrrhic victory would not amount to much in the lives of the average man/woman/teen.