It's well documented that modern policing in the US began in the model of slave patrols. And it shows.
One of the main ways America is so different than Europeans because of its political system. Here we empower rural areas (due to electoral college). Without electoral college, the national policies are what urban policies are. NY state looks just like Canada from a political POV, large urban concentrated center who vote and dictate all the policies, and rural areas don't really get much of a say in state policy.
Urban areas are ok with different point of views, they are ok with lifestyles which don't result in 'spreading of the tribe' (i.e. abortion, LGBTQ etc), they are less religious, pro-infrastructure spending (because a fire brigade can serve a LOT of people).
Rural areas are more religious, self-reliant, pro-guns, anti things which don't spread the tribe.
In European democracies, this results in primarily urban driven policies, whereas in the US this results in a constant rural-urban divide and struggle.
I mean, the US has come a long way from chattel slavery, Jim Crow laws, Chinese exclusion acts, Irish exclusion, Italian exclusion, Catholics, etc. It did recently have a black president. Yes it has a very long way to go, but there has been a lot of progress in it's history.
There are many reasons why this argument does not hold water. In every economic system inequality feels terrible. People don't really have an absolute scale of inequality where they get upset if it crosses a certain threshold. It's all a matter of how much do they believe they can achieve the top spot.
A starving artist doesn't get super upset at wealth and the lavish parties of a successful artist because he truly believes that one day he'll get there. Tomorrow Jay-Z could become world's first trillionaire but a struggling hip-hop star would still not support high taxation on his assets.
The resentment starts when he believes that achieving that high status is not possible (which is not true for America) OR when he loses the existing status (i.e status loss).
The status loss theory explains things like Communist revolutions, rise of Christianity in the decline of Roman Empire far more than income inequality.
In fact in the United States, people at the low end of income almost never support the income inequality theory, it's almost always done by high social status non-religious left-liberals. For the people at the low end of income curve (but not like starving actors/artist/authors) believe that in the US, people have a shot at becoming rich, but because of loss of economic opportunity due to globalization, immigration etc has resulted in creation of this situation.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/15/us/sikh-hate-crime-victims/in...
I don't really understand your agitation here to my comment. Yes, right now liberals aren't open to new ideas and conservatives are, but traditionally (and its well documented) liberals are open to new ideas and experiences but conservatives aren't. This doesn't mean anything other than what it says there.
The liberal-urban nexus and conservative-rural nexus is defined by their circumstances. You can choose to not keep a gun while living in the rural area, but you definitely have trouble keeping a gun in the urban area.
If you live in the rural area you can have many-many kids without an extra pressure on resources or you may choose to have fewer kids, whereas in the urban areas you need to be a lot more rich to have that 3rd kid because the resource pressure is so great.