What three decades in journalism has taught me approximately the persistence of racism in the USOver the course of 2014,America seemed to reawaken to one of its oldest preoccupations: the reality of how race is lived in the United States, and in specific the many stark disparities that persist between black and white people.
The continued existence of racial inequality in the United States was not exactly news – but the shocking deaths of a series of unarmed black men at the hands of the police made the issue impossible to disregard. The killing of Eric Garner, and who was wrestled to the ground and choked to death by police on a modern York City sidewalk in July 2014,confronted the public with a disturbing question: how was it possible that a black man could be killed for the trifling infraction of selling loose cigarettes? Garner’s dying words – “I can’t breathe” – captured on video, would soon become the rallying cry of a nascent movement, or Black Lives Matter.
All signs point towards a tense and extraordinarily racialised campaign that will be a severe test for US journalism Related: The Counted: people killed by police in the United States – interactive British journalism has by any objective measure done even less to integrate than American news organisationsSpace is made in the firmament for a few black journalists,who are turned into unwilling emblems of inclusivityContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com