Billboards in Brooklyn Break Down Racial Disparities
“Don’t want to be stopped by the NYPD? STOP BEING BLACK.”
That's the headline of a "Racism Still Exists" advertisement on a Brooklyn, New York, bus stop. The poster is part of a series of ads that break down racial disparities in health, wealth, education and the media by the anonymously funded campaign known as RISE.
RISE is tackling the racial disparities in stop-and-frisk, a New York Police Department policy that has disproportionately targeted Black and Latino men. Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that the NYPD's use of the stop-and-frisk policy in the Bronx was unconstitutional.
In the past, RISE has taken issue with ads targeting Blacks and the lack of starring roles for Blacks on TV and in movies. Their ads have been appearing in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn since August.
“RISE is a project designed to illuminate some of the ways in which racism operates in this country,” according to the site.
All of RISE's graphics live on the the Racism Still Exists Tumblr page. The blog states its mission is to debunk the myth that we currently live in a “post-racial” society in America.
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