Black anger that Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson was not charged for killing Michael Brown stems partly from the fact that blacks in America often face much worse treatment from cops than whites do. Only rarely do whites get an unpleasant taste of what minorities have to swallow.

A few years ago, when my middle child was in college, he had a summer job in New Mexico. Returning home to Illinois, he drove into Oklahoma, where he was pulled over by a highway patrolman.