Commentary: Deep racial inequality persists in the US — but many Americans don’t want to believe it

Progress toward racial equality in the United States is real — and possible — if we look, for instance, at changes in racial attitudes across time.

However, a rigid belief that progress is automatic, natural, linear or always forward moving, lends itself to the denial of the persistence of racial inequality in the funding gaps between public schools serving majority white students versus those serving children of color, the disproportionate death and hospitalization rate during the COVID-19 pandemic in communities of color, and the Black-white