Americans, pay attention to what has been going on in France the last two weeks. These events show the same kind of explosions that virtually formed American practices in the ways of racial treatment.

What better way to show your distaste and anger with your nation’s behavior than to wait for a triggering event (the electrocution of two scared French teens) and rain fear and fire across your home environment? French civilians are doing that right now.

Throughout the 20th century, America was plagued by riotous violence. After the First and Second World Wars, rural and urban riots took hundreds of lives and in some cases wiped minority-dominant towns completely off the map.

In nearly all cases, these American riots were focused on unemployment, unfair treatment of minority populations and racial migration into specific regions. This is exactly what we are looking at with regards to France.

People are protesting possible racially-based interrogations of citizens by the police, enormous gaps in wealth and unemployment figures from location to location and the general mistreatment of racial minorities within the french political and social structure. Does any of this sound familiar to anyone?

We are all likely old enough to recall the rioting in South-Central Los Angeles in the early nineties and the crying eyes of Rodney King pleading to the mobs, “Can’t we all just get along?” Do you think any of the aforementioned principles figured into this situation?

France’s situation right now is along the same lines as what America sadly had to endure dozens of times throughout its history. However, rather than the low-income African-American populations being most directly involved it is the ghettoed Muslim North African population and the many other poor minority groups carrying the torches in this event in France.

Fifteen days of fresh, French rioting has placed the world’s eyes on the news and in the papers. In Germany, Spain, Belgium and Denmark, protesters from the poorly represented, low-income populations have spawned from the flames in France and lit their own fires. Before this blaze is controlled the world may have many more burn marks on it.

France has been given a lesson in racial sociology these last two weeks, more in-depth than anything you can learn at any university, and they had better be taking notes.

Racial inequalities in a modernized, advanced nation cannot do anything for that nation but damage it. Riotous protests seen in France have likely shown to the whole world what can happen when a nation tries to turn its head to such problems.

Americans, we need to be paying attention as well as the French, because like we have seen so many times in our history, fires can start and consume entire societies with no warning and leave nothing but utter devastation behind.