There are regular outbursts of violence across Detroit and America as a whole, and this violence is often described as random, purposeless and senseless.

It seems that as soon as we are over the shock wave of one incident of bloodshed and mayhem, there is another outbreak to hold us in its torrid, crimson grasp.

There are mountains of coverage devoted to excavating and shedding light on every detail of the violent act itself; from the number of bullets fired, or the kinds of stab wounds, or the severity of blows delivered. As part of our cultural diet, we are not spared repetitive and gory information about these episodes, for they are divulged to us in books, movies, television programs, as well as popular magazines and newspapers.

It is a scientific fact that for every action, there is a corresponding reaction. And virtually all psychiatrists, psychologists, and sociologists agree that human behavior, whether benevolent, malicious, or indifferent does not spring out of a vacuum but is rooted in a plethora of aggravating and mitigating factors. And the one overriding factor is the influence of environment.

The environment exerts tremendous pressure on how a person develops mentally, spiritually, and physically. And it determines the social and psychological points of reference by which people relate to others, as well as themselves.

The American establishment should not and cannot be let off the hook for producing and maintaining a system and a society which is part and parcel of the violence that is cultivated within its borders. In fact, the rulers, fashioner, and controllers of America have been involved in a conspiracy of violence through its institutions of learning, through its corporate mandated media, and through its government agencies.

It should not, of course, be surprising that America is an incredibly violent nation. That it remains, as the late great Martin Luther King Jr. noted, the greatest purveyor of violence in the world when we study its actions in the cold light of objective reality. And recognize it as a series of military developments and economic conspiracies steeped in a culture of racism and classism and devoted to the plunder and domination of Blacks and non-Whites in particular and poor people in general, by violence, intimidation, and deceit.

It is a methodology of violence that stretches back at least to the late 13th century when the first Europeans landed on the shores of the Americas.

This violence against darker skinned people has continued to the present day and conditioned many Blacks to prey on themselves with minds contaminated with a virulent strain of self-contempt and self-hatred.

Thus, all violence in America must be viewed through the lens of the social, economic, political and historical landscape from which it is hatched. To do less will make us co-conspirators on the path that leads to bitterness, frustration, and destruction.

Steven Malik Shelton can be reached at [email protected]