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Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020

Do most young Americans believe racism is a significant problem in the US?

Allegra Taylor, Gigafact Foundry
yes

A large majority of young people think that racism is a significant problem in the U.S., according to recent polls.

In May, Pew Research Center reported approximately two-thirds of millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and Gen-Zers (born after 1996) said that Black Americans are treated less fairly than white Americans. About half of respondents in older generations agreed.

In June, Business Insider and partner groups polled nearly 39,000 Americans aged 13 to 25. Of the poll's respondents, 88% said that Black Americans faced racial discrimination.

In a July survey of more than 3,000 people between the ages of 18 and 36 organized by a University of Chicago professor, 64% said that racism remains a major problem in U.S. society.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

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Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.

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