The Americans who believe the US human rights concept is universally applicable have forgotten the human rights traumas their country has gone through. For example, in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case in 1857, the US Supreme Court ruled that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and that the Fifth Amendment barred any law that would deprive a slaveholder of "his property, such as his slaves".

Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation saved the US from division, but it only proved to be a lip service to the huge number of African Americans. The 1964 Civil Rights Act resolved the issue of prejudiced "racial segregation" at the legal level, but African Americans continue to face "selective segregation" by the white majority in their daily lives.

As a matter of fact, the US' human rights record, especially its racial equality record, is far from perfect. No American ready to face history will see the killing of Brown as accidental; instead, he/she will see it as the outcome of an inherent "human rights crisis". No wonder, some American human rights experts have admitted that the killing of Brown is a shame for the US.

The shooting of Brown has also reminded people that there is no one-for-all civil rights movement and no universal human rights values. A country that indulges in self-conceit and keeps itself isolated from the rest of the world in terms of human rights development is bound to be de-linked from real "human rights" concepts and will inevitably plunge into a "human rights crisis".

If the US government fails to concentrate its energy on resolving domestic issues, more Browns would be sacrificed on the altar of racism in the so-called land of freedom and plenty.

The author is an associate professor at the School of Administrative Law, Southwest University of Political Science and Law.