Postracial illusions shattered amid collapsing black institutions and persistent inequality.

Evidence

It’s as if we’re walking a tightrope toward a new idea of black America and we’re not across the wire yet. But the places where we started are unraveling—it’s all coming undone, and we’re still on the rope. We know we haven’t reached the other side, some post-racial utopia. That illusion has been shattered by events like Michael Brown’s death, the tragic massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Great Black Depression. Racial inequality continues to cut short the lives, livelihoods, and opportunities of black people in this country. Black people are still subject to premature death. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 349

Categorization

• XREF: Grounds the reading in the post-Ferguson events (Michael Brown, Charleston) the reader flagged as their evaluation lens.