To many, the protests after the shooting murder of black teen Michael Brown in St. Louis will seem like a routine. The outrage, the Al Sharpton - and soon, we're on to the next thing.

What too few realize is that the main reason so many people think of racism as the core of being black in modern America is the cops: the relationship between police forces and young black men, and how often the former kill the latter under suspicious circumstances.

I am the last person to jump in with overheated rhetoric that America is engaged in a "war against black men." There is no evidence of anything so deliberate. However, when more temperately minded people say that black lives are valued less in the clinch than white ones, jump in I must, because it's true.

A few weeks ago, white 18-year-old Steve Lohner could tote a gun around in Aurora, Colorado (where in 2012 James Holmes gunned 12 people to death and injured 70 others), practically taunting law enforcement to mess with him, in a quest to make a showy point about gun rights. Who among us can pretend that if a black kid was doing the same thing he wouldn't be much more likely to wind up killed? Those inclined to pretend might note that meanwhile, black 22-year-old John Crawford was killed two weeks later for holding a toy gun at a Wal-Mart in Ohio.

This kind of thing sits in black American minds and creates a sense of alienation. I first started writing about race 15 years ago, perplexed that so many people seemed convinced that nothing had changed on race in America since about 1960. Having grown up in quiet neighborhoods, I didn't get it. I quickly learned - the sticking point was, and still is, the cops.