Wrong. It is, and remains, about race.
Some hoped that Baltimore would be different, because the city has a black mayor and a black police chief and many black police officers. It also has an African-American CEO of the school district, who had been the superintendent in Milwaukee, another troubled city.
But as W.E.B. Du Bois pointed out long ago, there can be black officials and yet persistent institutional racism. The presence of black leaders doesn’t ensure good leadership that supports brighter futures for black children and communities.
Want proof? Look no farther than Baltimore.
Maryland incarcerates 1,437 of every 100,000 Black residents — four times greater than the rate for whites. This is not unusual. In fact, it is business as usual in America: the mass incarceration of African Americans, specifically young Black men, to enforce caste boundaries, impoverishing their families in the process.