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8 Interesting Reasons Why Black People Should Stop Expecting White America to Wake up to Racism

Posted byBy Olivia | Published on: CommentsComments (6)

Civil Rights Movement March

Blacks Have Waited Long Enough

After nearly 40o years of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and 100 years of Jim Crow, and 50 years since the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., Blacks are still suffering from systematic racism, inequality, and state sanctioned violence. If whites haven’t yet dismantled the oppressive system that continues to persecute Blacks, it’s insane to expect they will be doing it anytime soon.

 

stop being racist

 

Speeches of Equality and Anti-racism are Rarely Followed by Real Change

Though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation in public places and discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin, 50 years later, structural racism still remains.

“There has been a dramatic change in attitudes and in principles,” says Michael Wenger, a senior research fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the nation’s leading think tank on African-American socioeconomics. “Change has been much less dramatic in actual behavior.”

The racial wealth gap kept widening well after the civil rights era, nearly tripling between 1984 and 2009, according to a Brandeis University study.

Still independent.

We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.

Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.

The wider picture isn't any steadier. Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

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