(CNN)We had to know that it would come to this destruction, this unbelievable heartbreak. Had to know that America's centuries-old powder keg of racism, injustice, fear and hate would one day explode before our gun-loving souls. And that the revolution would be televised across social media.
The sniper attack that killed five police officers and injured seven in Dallas may be the spark that finally shocks us into understanding just how toxic our nation has become, how dangerous for all of us, no matter what our race. Surely, we must see now how deeply we have failed one another and that our willful ignorance, thirst for vengeance and reluctance to even acknowledge our hatred and injustice will rip our nation apart.
A sniper suspect, who later was killed in a standoff when police detonated a bomb near him, said he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers and that he was upset about the "recent police shootings," according to Dallas police Chief David Brown.
We cannot pretend to be shocked by this. Not if we have bothered to listen to the any on the long list of grieving black voices, such as that of Valerie Castile, mother of Philando Castile, 32, after her son was shot and killed by police after being pulled over for a broken taillight earlier this week.
"He was no thug," Valerie Castile felt compelled to tell us, acknowledging the status quo assumptions about every black man, woman or child gunned down by police.
She begged America to feel her pain. She pleaded with us to see the humanity in her beloved son, who was described by all as a gentle man and a role model at the school where he worked as a cafeteria nutrition specialist. His mother wanted us to understand that her son didn't deserve his horrendous death.
That death might have gone unnoticed by the world, had not his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, live-streamed the immediate aftermath of the shooting as the life drained from Castile's slumped, bullet-riddled body. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.