( CNN ) We did it again , in another American city . We set Baltimore on fire this time . We brutalized black bodies . We turned a funeral into a riot . We let things get out of hand . We looted . We threw stones at policemen . We threw stones at citizens . We created camera-ready chaos , and we replayed the images . We created a culture of such deep distrust and disrespect that violence seemed the inevitable response . We let the violence flow . We let the violence stand for everything that 's wrong with the things we already did n't like . By now you may be asking , `` Who 's we ? '' You may be saying with some irritation , `` Do n't lump me in with them . I did n't have anything to do with it . '' To which the only real answer can be : Stop kidding yourself . The word `` we '' is one of the great American words . We the People . Yes we can . We are family . I use `` we '' a lot when I talk about our country 's achievements . I like to say we won the Second World War , we put a man on the moon , we invented the Internet , we gave the world jazz . Well , if I -- a son of immigrants whose family had nothing to do with any of those accomplishments -- if I get to claim those aspects of American history , then surely I have to claim the unsavory aspects too . `` We '' cuts both ways . We enslaved Africans . We cut Reconstruction short and made a mockery of equal citizenship . We supported Jim Crow , then redlined , subordinated , and ghettoized African-Americans . We cut blacks out of the New Deal . We created a polity in which racial inequity and economic inequality magnify each other unrelentingly . We tried to put a lid on it with heavy policing and a War on Drugs . We failed . We are the authors of every page of Baltimore 's story . Do n't tell me it 's not your responsibility or mine . About how slavery and its legacy are artifacts of a time past . Someone else 's problem . No , we own them all . And we all have to face that before we can fix anything in Baltimore or beyond . But there 's another dimension of the story of `` we '' that matters as well . It 's about progressives and conservatives and their competing stories of how we got here . Every time protests and violence break out in response to police brutality , the same depressing pattern breaks out . The event becomes simply a Rorschach test for left and right , and each side sees in the rioting confirmation of its prior views . For the left , it 's about the deep structural root causes of the alienation and violence . Liberals gravitate on social media to commentaries or reactions that reinforce this frame , like the surprisingly astute comments from the Baltimore Orioles executive who spelled out why a long history of racial injustice and economic disenfranchisement made rioting nearly inevitable . Conservatives gravitate to their own frames , about a lack of personal responsibility or role models among poor urban blacks , about the failures of Great Society and Democratic programs , and about how it all comes back to a president ( who happens to be black ) who has divided us by focusing so much on race . What gets lost in this Groundhog Day replay of left-right frames is a simple reality that we all have to recognize : Both longstanding structural racism and personal irresponsibility are on display this week . Both a history of police brutality and a present crisis of street violence . Both an inherited , multigenerational lack of opportunity and a dearth of leaders willing to address it . We can not separate out the aspects of the problem that do n't fit our preferred explanation -- not if we are sincere about solving the problem . And until more people can see this , we will not see progress . We ca n't judge looters for their antisocial behavior without judging a color-caste structure and a school-to-prison pipeline that has flushed them away like so much refuse . By the same token , we ca n't keep opining about root causes without also supporting the parents and pastors and neighbors who , in their own small ways , are organizing each other to break the cycle of brokenness . I 'm of the left . But it can not possibly be that only those with whom I disagree are responsible for what is happening in Baltimore . It can not possibly be that only my worldview contains all the solutions . Whatever our political perspective , we need to open our eyes to what is actually happening in Baltimore and other cities in the United States in the second decade of the 21st century . It is an abomination . We should all be able to say that . It 's time to push each other out of our ideological and identity comfort zones and build unlikely coalitions to create more opportunity . It 's time to act like we are all in charge . Because we are . And there is no other `` we '' waiting in the wings .
In Baltimore , after the death of Freddie Gray , riots erupted , cars were set on fire and 200 arrests were made . Eric Liu : Liberals and conservatives react predictably , see the riots as confirmation of their views . It 's time to push each other out of our ideological and identity comfort zones and change the status quo , he says .