Military fatigues, tear gas, SWAT teams, riot gear, rubber bullets, snipers, detained reporters: these images commonly associated with warzones are the same ones that could describe the culmination of mounting tension in Ferguson, Missouri last week as residents in the St. Louis suburb gathered in the streets to protest the fatal shooting of a teenager by a police officer.

The nightly clashes between Ferguson residents and their police started out with a vigil for 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed black man who was shot and killed by a white Ferguson police officer on Aug. 9.

The scene escalated into looting and rioting, turning into all-out clashes last week as residents grew restless with answers they felt weren’t being provided by police as to the reason for Brown’s death and the identity of the officer who shot him.

Those two pieces of information have since been given by the police, including security camera footage allegedly showing Brown robbing a convenience store, yet the protests continue.

The police said Brown was shot following a scuffle between him, another man and a police officer. One of the men allegedly pushed the officer into the squad car and struggled with him over his weapon. The scuffle moved to the street, which is where Brown was shot multiple times. Whether or not Brown was the one struggling with the officer in the car is not clear.

The National Guard was sent to the scene early this week to keep the chaos in check.

Those still protesting want more answers — what will happen to the police officer who shot and killed Brown? Why was he shot multiple times?

And the most disturbing question: what role, if any, does a history of racial tension have in this death?

Though both protesters and police have contributed to the violence, it represents that the groups are at an impasse.

Though a terrible situation, could the Ferguson chaos be a catalyst for easing racial tensions?

I don’t believe those tensions can be “resolved” in any one lifetime; after all, race-related clashes have happened periodically throughout the country’s history.

On the whole, however, I’m inclined toward the theory of social evolution, which posits that if we charted the number of racially-driven clashes against the prevalence of discriminatory attitudes on a graph, the line would be extremely squiggly, but overall, we would find slow improvement.

The problem is we are living in the here and now — not over hundreds of years.

We may never know the truth about what happened that night, and it’s likely people have their own truths to which they will staunchly adhere.

But the fact this shooting death was followed by another just two days later when an unarmed black man in Los Angeles was shot and killed by a police officer points to a larger problem, and one that can’t be ignored. Now protesters are taking to the streets in L.A. in opposition to the police force’s handling of the death.

This isn’t a one-off. It’s not even a two-off. It’s the real, deadly implication of racial tensions in a country that’s supposed to be the land of equal opportunity.

Now everyday people, politicians and police forces are in the uncomfortable position of having to face this racial divide head-on. No longer placated and quietened, it can’t be ignored.