The footage coming out of Ferguson Missouri has been unsettling all week. For some, any sight of riots, especially when racially charged, bring back troubling memories of our nation on fire in the 1960s. For many others, the vision of military equipment in American streets is a nightmare return to those days when our college campuses were like war zones, and a kid like me was scared to tears by that front page image of a girl crying over the slain body of a fellow student at Kent State.

Most of us haven't had to deal with military might in anything but the movies, or a news item. But we know how unsettling it is seeing Uzis in public, uniform or no uniform, as well as the frightening aspect of many third world Polizia. But to witness armored vehicles out front of a McDonalds on a Midwestern suburban street, a machine gunner on its top, doesn't feel like the America we grew up in. Was Ferguson really that dangerous? If so, why did the news items sending us these images maintain equilibrium, even when they too were the brunt of an occasional rock attack? And why all these arrests of newsgatherers?

This week's front page story will hopefully alleviate a lot of local fears about any of this happening here, although we do have to note how some of our local police never quite said never to the armament questions we asked. At least they talked about community policing principles, and by answering our queries implied the importance of communication.

And yet who hasn't noticed the attitudes coming from police as they pull you over for a tail light that's out, or going over the speed limit. No smiles, no concern; you are a guilty party with no excuses open to inspections and all investigative forces.

Taken to the levels we've seen in Missouri, or defended in some circles, the results seem to feed an underlying disrespect for the people being served by law enforcement, and the laws. Yes, we sometimes break them. But don't we tell our kids that it's their behavior we find bad and not they themselves?

Even more troubling about all of this have been the ways in which we've approached our age-old problems regarding bias in this country. And we're not just talking about the racism that's all the focus now in Ferguson, whether it be the anger of the black population there who have finally risen to talk about the many ways in which they feel held down and treated wrong, the stories coming out about the many ways in which a city like St. Louis has segregated itself over decades, or the sad spectacle of those who get angry at any mention of race problems in America, as if it were un-American to point them out as a discussion needing attention.

We're also talking about the ways in which the anti-Semitism charges brought against the Pine Bush School District have uncovered layers of bias including not only what went down there in the first place, involving swastikas and Stars of David, but all that's come since. And yes, that includes the manner in which the Bloomingburg development has been fought, officially and unofficially, based on people's bias against "those kinds."

"Inbred" is the unfortunate term that Pine Bush's previous school superintendent used regarding his community's biases. But we have more hope than that because "inbred" suggests a problem that can't be solved. We feel people can and do act better, given patience and learning.

Just think of that great Rodgers & Hammerstein song at the heart of their great South Pacific, which I watched with my kid this week. "You've got to be taught to hate and fear, You've got to be taught from year to year," the song notes. "It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear; you've got to be carefully taught."

Just as, we must add, such behaviors must also be carefully untaught using exposure, as is part of our American way. And not through force but the power of empathy, of understanding why a people can grow angry, but inevitably live with others it can't always agree with.

Be safe...