This article was released earlier this week in Unmuted Echoes, a cultural newsletter by Alex Haynes. Get early access to articles by subscribing.
Happy Father’s Day! As we head into a week of Juneteenth celebrations, Black life and the Black experience return to the American spotlight. Let me know how (and where) you’re celebrating freedom this Juneteenth.
Before I jump into the research that put news organizations into a chokehold this week, I want to celebrate my Dad. Parenting comes with no playbook, but the instincts of parents should be revered.
Black Father: Know that you matter. Your words, your actions and your truth make a deep impact. Dually non-words, lack of action and lies make one too. In a few weeks, we will focus on the Black family and I’ll have more to share about Black fatherhood, misnomers and general viewpoints that have stolen the narrative but are rarely based in fact.
Today we’ll discuss Pew Research, who they are and why the data they reported (in a very sloppy way) is a sudden shock to our fellow, non-Black neighbors and comrades.
It’s important to quantify and first qualify the validity how Pew aggregates their information before we dialogue about their findings. We live in an extremely unhealthy news climate, where educated bobbleheads in HD makeup will regurgitate pretty much anything fed to them via teleprompter. This is a major disservice to communities that place their trust in these companies and often look to these sources for viable information. Just this week Sinclair Broadcast Group, a major media player in the United States that owns or operates a total of 193 stations across the country in over 100 markets (spanning 40% of American households), did just that. I will bust that wide open tomorrow.
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. They are widely regarded as a nonpartisan and neutral entity and they don’t take policy positions. Pew employs a variety of research methods, including surveys, demographic analysis, and content analysis, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of its data. They are often transparent in sharing their methodology and raw data, which has boosted their neutral reputation. You may not be convinced that they have quantifiable research on us, or they are people you want to hear from, but let’s talk about what they found.
Before jumping directly into this week’s data, two years ago, they released data (that became immediate political fodder) on how race plays a central part in how Black Americans identify and connect with each other. I’m sharing this for two reasons: 1. One of their key findings was that we learn about our ancestors and U.S. Black history from family. 2. It found that 54% of Black people felt that seeing themselves as Black was extremely important. It should be no surprise that shortly after the release of this study, the attacks on Black history, the teaching of such, and DEI programs began to rise again.
Pew’s new study revealed that a majority of Black Americans believe various U.S. institutions are designed to hold them back. In summary, the findings conclude:
- Criminal Justice: 74% believe the system is designed against Black people.
- Political System: 67% feel the political system is structured to disadvantage Black people.
- Economic System: 65% think economic structures hinder Black progress.
- Healthcare and Media: Significant percentages believe in systemic biases in healthcare and media.
Initially, I winced at the first report I heard on a cable news channel. I intentionally limit the amount of commentary on and about Black people from non-Black people that I ingest and do so for viable reasons. When I saw the story covered again by a local affiliate and then again in my inbox, I took a deep breath and decided to take a look.
At first glance, what do you think?
Turns out my wincing was innate. The initial promotion of this data did not go well for Pew at all. A few hours after the study was published, Pew added an editor’s note to its report stating that the study is under review and using the term “racial conspiracy theories” was “not the best choice” to make. Their Instagram comments haven’t recovered. The editor added that “Black Americans’ doubts about the fairness of U.S. institutions are accompanied by suspicion. How Black Americans think those institutions impact their ability to thrive is worthy of study, and that’s the purpose of this survey.”
The Prison System
Do we really have time to discuss how this system has been crafted to disadvantage Black Americans? I’d speculate that we don’t. I barely have the time and space to talk about all of the things that we know. I choose not to imagine what we don’t. Pew concludes that Black Americans’ doubts about the fairness of institutions are accompanied by suspicion. Indeed, most Black adults say the prison (74%), political (67%), and economic (65%) systems in the U.S., among others, are designed to hold Black people back (Pew Research Center survey of Black adults conducted in September 2023).
Let’s take a trip down memory lane. We don’t have to go very far, actually. In 2016, award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer Ava Duvernay produced the film 13th on Netflix. It took me three days to watch, two filled with angry, yelling-at-the-television tirades accompanied by my then co-host. We spent at least three days on air discussing this film, the need for us to see it, but also how hard it was to watch. The film explores the prison-industrial complex and the “intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States”. The title refers to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1865, which abolished slavery throughout the United States and ended involuntary servitude, except as punishment for convicted criminals. The film argues that this exemption has been used to continue the practice of involuntary servitude in the form of penal labor. It then exposes the latter as fact.
At the beginning of the film, former President Obama states that the United States is just 5% of the world yet holds 25% of the world’s prisoners. We don’t usually connect the dots on stats like this, but it’s not as complex as it seems. Most Black people were disenfranchised across the South at the turn of the 20th century, excluded from the political system (including juries) at the same time that lynching of Black people by white mobs reached a peak. Jim Crow legislation was passed by Democrats to legalize segregation and suppress minorities, forcing them into second-class citizen status. While the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s restored civil rights, the film notes the Republican Party’s appeal to southern white conservatives, including the claim to be the party to fight the war on crime and the war on drugs, which began to include mandatory, lengthy sentencing. A new wave of minority suppression began, reaching African Americans and others in the northern, midwestern, and western cities where many had migrated. In the midst of all of this intentional disarray, private prison contractors entered the market to satisfy demand as arrests and sentences increased, forming an independent group with its own economic incentives to criminalize minor activities and lengthen sentences in order to keep prisons full. Politicians and businessmen in rural areas encouraged the construction of prisons to supply local jobs, and they also have had incentives to keep prisons full.
The 13th Amendment gave them the right and the ability to re-enslave prisoners. The system then worked overtime to make sure the prisoners were Black.
Data shows that from the early 1970s to the present, the rate of incarceration and the number of people in prisons has climbed dramatically in the United States, while at the same time the rate of crime in the United States has continued to decline since the late 20th century. The system continues to work overtime to make sure prisoners are Black. I think the Pew research tracks here. I could spend hours on politics, but we’ll align that data here.
Psychologists say belief in conspiracy theories is often linked to paranoia or other mental health issues, but racial conspiracies that Black people believe in are rooted in factual acts of intentional or negligent harm. How do we contend this? What school or church program addresses this? Pew surveyed 4,736 Black adults in the U.S. from Sept. 12 to 24, 2023, in English and Spanish. Honestly, just one would have been enough for me.
As the data continued, it became more staggering. Validating, but staggering. What bothers me more is that this data isn’t offered to a limited audience. I decided to discuss the wide-ranging, unbiased nature of Pew to drive home my point. This neutral data center is referenced by nearly every reputable media and service organization in the country. From Fortune 500 companies, college campuses, to churches of all types, I’ve seen this research used to push points, policies, and narratives. I can only conclude, as you should, that this information is a snapshot of the known. Our employers, neighbors, and elected officials know. They are aware. It’s also fair to conclude that they assume you don’t.
But are we being gaslit into believing that these deliberate inequalities and misdeeds are figments of our imagination? Is the constant retort that ‘we are constantly pulling the Black card’ baked into the plan to keep this disenfranchisement alive?
From Wells Fargo’s long history of mishandling Black customers to redlining political districts and neighborhood covenants that keep Black people and their money out of neighborhoods, these experiences routinely mirror the ’50s and ’60s in the US, an American history we all learn as relics or traces of the past that we have moved on from. We as Americans are sold that narrative collectively – and since these transgressions are only happening in our world, the narrative we are all sold sticks.
We naturally believe the education system as it tells us things are equal. Different, sure, but equal? Hardly. The equality fight is one we’ve come to move on from. It becomes even more complicated with Black + woman or Black + LGBTQ.
Unfortunately, knowing and living all of this, Black Americans still find the desire in their big hearts and deep souls to believe in America. Fortunately, America continues to benefit.
The study founds some additional facts worth sharing. As we move into another year that celebrates our freedom, take some time to reflect on the word free.
Additional findings from Pew’s recent study:
- About seven-in-ten Black Americans say the criminal justice system was designed to hold Black people back.
- 76% of Black adults say the racial conspiracy theory that Black public officials are singled out and discreditedin a way that doesn’t happen to White public officials is true and happening today.
- About two-thirds (67%) of Black Americans say racial conspiracy theories in business, in the form of targeted marketing of luxury products to Black people in order to bankrupt them, are true and happening today.
- 55% of Black adults say racial conspiracy theories in the form of secret and nonconsensual medical experiments like the Tuskegee study are true and happening to Black people today.
- 55% of Black adults say the racial conspiracy theory that the government encourages single motherhood and the elimination of Black men from Black families is true and happening today.
- 51% of Black adults say the racial conspiracy theory that the government promotes birth control and abortion to reduce the size of the Black population is true and happening today.