It was announced Monday night that a grand jury determined not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting Michael Brown last August. The jury found that Wilson shot Brown in the line of duty under credible threat against his own life. Immediately, protests began in cities across the nation.

In Ferguson, Missouri, where the event occurred, the protests quickly descended into violence. More than 25 structures and 10 cars were set on fire. Officers reported facing heavy automatic gunfire, and protesters throwing molotov cocktails. One reporter was attacked by someone wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, another was hit in the head with a rock during a live broadcast, and another was chased off air by gunfire. Vandalism and looting were rampant, with even the store that Michael Brown had robbed before he was killed being looted. The Federal Aviation Administration began diverting some St. Louis-bound flights to other airports due to the reports of gunshots. At least 61 people were arrested on charges ranging from trespassing to burglary to receiving stolen property. Police also deployed tear gas on at least one location to contain rioting.

Consider why this mayhem is happening. Think about the incredibly toxic ideas that are turning this into such a volatile moment.

There are Americans who believe the reason this white policeman killed this young black man is pure racial animus. They are sure that at the time of the killing, the black man was raising his hands in surrender, posing no threat; the policeman shot him in cold blood out of murderous hatred for blacks.

They further believe that there exists a pattern of such attacks—that blacks face regular if not continual harassment from authorities and citizens across the country—that young black men must fear, even for their lives, from whites (or even, in the case of George Zimmerman, “white Hispanics”) who are looking for any pretext to go after them.

They further believe that the grand jury’s acquittal is based on racial hostility alone. Their mistrust of and cynicism about the justice system is so deep that they are certain the jury did not rule based on facts and evidence, but in spite of facts and evidence. They know that the only reason Wilson was found innocent is the system’s inherently racist nature.

These views are held by a lot of Americans. This type of thinking is producing a lot of anger and hostility. In a statement shortly after the grand jury announcement was made, President Barack Obama said, “[T]here are Americans who are deeply upset, even angry. It’s an understandable reaction.”

Among those who believe all of that, there are some who are are so sure of these convictions, so certain of the system’s innate anti-black bigotry, that they are ready to rise up in violent protest. Not directly, specifically against police officers or government officials that they have proven to be racist, but against authority in general—and even against society in general. They believe the injustice they have been dealt is so egregious that they are justified at lashing out at virtually anything—smashing shop windows, looting stores, creating general mayhem.

Surely the number of Americans who follow such “reasoning,” as it were, are very few. But they are numerous enough to arrest the attention of media and law enforcement, and countless others of us who are apprehensive about what they are about to do. And truth be told, this is not unwarranted apprehension; it has been built over time in recent years, incident by indiscriminately violent incident.

Further, that group of toxic, non-thinking Americans, however small, is legitimized, unapologetically, by many quite-mainstream political, academic and media voices. These supposedly enlightened thinkers insist that violent racial protests and outbursts are, if not justifiable, certainly understandable, given the oppression that blacks face within American society.

We must acknowledge that America has come to recognize and accept an extraordinary level of wholly irrational, dangerously noxious racial animosity as simply a part of life in this country.

This is not a situation that will blow over when the Ferguson protests die out. According to biblical prophecy, it is building to a nation-destroying crisis point.

To learn about that future, read Gerald Flurry’s recent article on the subject, “Where America’s Race Riots Are Leading.”