Last week two black people were shot dead by the police in Louisiana and Minnesota in situations where such actions were not the last resort. Subsequently, upset by the killings, former soldier Micah Johnson reacted in a similarly violent way by shooting dead five police officers on Thursday in Dallas. 

The fatal shootings have again brought the racism against African-Americans into the spotlight. While slavery ended 150 years ago and segregation has been outlawed for 50 years, racism against African-Americans still lingers and many still live in fear of the police. So far, police in the US have killed at least 136 black citizens this year.

Although the US has elected its first ever black president, black people still live in inferior conditions under ubiquitous prejudice. They have harder access to good schools, housing and decent jobs than other citizens. A CNN poll late last year found that 49 percent of respondents believe that racism is on the rise in US society, compared with just over one-quarter four years ago.

To change discrimination against African-Americans and improve their status requires lasting and strenuous efforts from both African-Americans and the rest of the country. It calls for actions from the government to economically and morally support African-Americans to improve the social environment and to enhance people's awareness. And African-Americans should never stop fighting for their rights through awareness campaigns and other efforts.

African-Americans can also learn from other races, including Asian-Americans, how to frame their own efforts. "Respectability" politics has been harshly, and often rightly, criticized by activists, but it can also be useful.

Asian-Americans, while they never experienced slavery, responded to the considerable prejudice against them in part by working hard to demonstrate that they could be good citizens. They have earned respect for their assiduity, and educational and occupational achievements. While recognizing the value of protest, determination to succeed even in the teeth of prejudice can also be a useful tool.

Black Americans are disproportionately both the perpetrators and the victims of violent crime in the US. While people focus their attention on the unfair treatment of black Americans, statistics show that they commit murder at almost six times the rate of white people, while gangs that commit a majority of crimes in the country are 82 percent black or Hispanic.

In part, this is because of the legacy of poverty and social collapse heaped upon black Americans by white prejudice, and of police departments that often treat the murder of young black men as a low-priority crime. But it is also the sign of a problem that black leaders themselves need to confront.

Violence is no solution to discrimination, especially when it consumes African-American communities. Black people are under no obligation to prove themselves to racist whites. But valuing education and career success can help highlight the ridiculousness of bigotry and encourage communities toward better futures.