Talk:2020 United States racial reckoning

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This article should be merged into 2020 United States racial unrest (see also discussions there about changing that article's name). The intention of that article is to provide a broad, overarching summary of the wave of opposition to system racism and support for Black Lives Matter in 2020; this article seems to have a similar focus. I don't think the distance between "injustice reckoning", referring more to public awareness and changes, as far as I can tell, and unrest, implying more of a focus on the protests and riots, is sufficient to justify not having one main overarching article that brings everything together. —Kilopylae (talk) 10:12, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

• Strong agree. Johncdraper (talk) 10:45, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Changing to Oppose. czar's explanation makes sense. Johncdraper (talk) 20:09, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
• Strong agree, as I have never heard of "injustice reckoning".Slatersteven (talk) 12:51, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. As discussed here, this article describes a social/cultural response borne out in reliable sources. It is distinct from protests in response to the killing of George Floyd. It is distinct from subsequent protests, demonstrations, and unrest. There are a litany of cited sources that discuss its distinctness and that discuss it as a "reckoning with racial injustice". If there are sources that show no distance between "injustice reckoning" and "unrest", I would be interested in seeing them. czar 17:44, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

  czar In that case, you need a better LEDE and a section introducing the concept. Let me write one for you. Johncdraper (talk) 18:01, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

  czar Okay, I have now done this. However, 'racial reckoning' is more common. I suggest the page be renamed according to the more common sociological term: 'United States racial reckoning'. Johncdraper (talk) 18:37, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

  So as not to get off-topic, we can discuss this in Talk:2020 United States racial reckoning/Archive 1#Title above. czar 20:17, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

• Strong agree This entire article could be in a section on the racial unrest. I do not agree with the reasoning that this is some type of distinct social phenomenon that wouldn't fit in the unrest article. The sources linked serve only to reinforce the author's contentions. Also, this article only describes one side of the wider cultural reaction to the protests. Regrettably, recent polls have shown support for BLM collapsing, so I am not convinced there's any "reckoning" on the horizon outside some Jim Crow era statues being torn down. Finally, it's not Wikipedia's role to determine what is or isn't a "reckoning" on racial injustice. This article is highly inconsistent with encyclopedic tones and frankly breaking with precedent, because I haven't seen any article on a similar subject written in this manner. Bigeyedbeansfromvenus (talk) 06:58, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose A merger would likely eliminate any coverage on social effects of the protest movement, in favor of covering only the riots and violence which attract the headlines. There are reliable sources covering such social aspects, even when not generally speaking of a reckoning. Dimadick (talk) 08:37, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
• Agree title is non-encyclopedic. Juno (talk) 00:24, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
• Strong agree This does not warrant a standalone article, and is much better suited for a section on the racial unrest article. Per the comment by FDW777 on the other article, the multitude of articles focusing on slightly different aspects of these events is overly burdensome and confusing. Stonkaments (talk) 05:42, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
• Agree your sources are biaised to the core.Baratiiman (talk) 07:53, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
• Strong Agree This is not an encyclopedic article, nor a retelling of historical on-going events, this is poorly written student-thesis. It’s a joke.Kaisersauce1 (talk) 07:53, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
• Comment There has been no new discussion in nearly two weeks — should the discussion be closed and we proceed with the merger? The current !votes show 6 Agree and 3 Oppose the merger. Stonkaments (talk) 15:47, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  Stonkaments, it's not a vote. That's why we use !vote. The numbers aren't as important as the arguments. —valereee (talk) 18:34, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  I know; I said !vote. Stonkaments (talk) 18:39, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  Stonkaments, yes, and you said basically '6-to-3, proceed with the merger?' which to me indicated you thought that was the important thing here. It's not. —valereee (talk) 18:41, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose this is a completely separate topic. This is not about unrest. It's about fallout from the unrest. —valereee (talk) 18:33, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  If the "reckoning" is fallout from the unrest, doesn't that mean they are not in fact completely separate topics? If the "reckoning" or societal impact is an extension or result of the unrest, then they should be included together in the same article. Stonkaments (talk) 18:48, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  Stonkaments, The unrest article is way too long already. If we insert this into it, very soon someone will say, 'hey, this article is too long. What can we spin off?' and someone will answer, 'I think we can spin off the fallout.' Which means recreating this article. —valereee (talk) 18:54, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  Why do you say the destination article is way too long already? The article's prose currently has 20,436 characters[1], approximately 20kB, which is well under the 40kB rule of thumb per WP:SIZERULE. Indeed, even after the merger (+11,000 characters), it would still be comfortably under 40kB. Stonkaments (talk) 19:00, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  Stonkaments, and how much of that article would this article be? I'm thinking it would be a major portion of it, which would be undue weight. The merger of this article would increase that article by 50%, which would make many reasonable editors say, "Hey, this section probably needs to be spun off". It's a waste of time to merge, then spin off. Let's just recognize this is a topic of its own. —valereee (talk) 19:11, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  No, I do not recognize this as a topic of its own. As to your question, much of this article's lead, Public opinion, and Public debate sections would be made redundant. I estimate the unique content discussing the societal impact would amount to ~20% of the combined article's length, which seems perfectly reasonable. Stonkaments (talk) 19:20, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

• Note to closer: there are a surprising number of newish accounts !voting support for this merger. I'm not sure how to interpret this. —valereee (talk) 18:52, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  Worth looking into, but I have to note that I arrived here because WP:FRS pointed me to the original RfC (at the other article's talk page). While the RfC tag has been removed (Why? And why isn't there one here now?), the other discussion clearly leads people to this one, and FRS doesn't do anything to sort people by age of account. So, people will show up here. That doesn't mean now WP:MEAT was involved, though. On US politics topics, that's always a strong possibility, due to social media.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:17, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  SMcCandlish, and no one has identified a specific requester anywhere, which is why I'm not sure —valereee (talk) 19:19, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  Wait, there was an RfC tag that's been removed? —valereee (talk) 19:20, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  SMcCandlish, can you point me at that? Not finding it. —valereee (talk) 19:23, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  Not going to dig thru page history for it; my own talk page has the FRS notice about the RfC; it's how I found the discussion (it's the only RfC-style discussion on that talk page).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:49, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  Maybe because WP:RFCNOT says that WP:MERGE should be used. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:49, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

• 2nd note to closer: Both this discussion and the aborted one at the other article's talk page will need to be assessed together, as it's unlikely that everyone who commented in one will comment in the other.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:49, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
• Support, and in the direction proposed. The supposed "reckoning" is a result (or could become a result) of the unrest, so is naturally a subtopic. And "reckoning" is far too WP:POV-pushing for an encyclopedia article's title anyway. This is clearly a WP:CONTENTFORK and arguably a WP:POVFORK.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:14, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
  PS: I have put an RfC tag back on this. The original thread had one, and it should be an RfC, especially since concerns about WP:MEATPUPPETRY have been raised. The only cure for that is "advertising" this discussion to a broader set of actual WP editors. I have also checked that it is listed at WP:PM, and is properly tagged with merge templates (someone[s] else already did take care of that). I have also closed and soft-redirected the WP:TALKFORK at the other talk page, to this one. (Technically, I think merge discussion belong as the merge-to target's talk page, but this is the one listed at WP:PM, and "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy", so this should be good enough to get the discussion centralized and assessable.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:49, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

  I don't understand this at all. This presupposes that the coverage for "racial unrest" far outweighs that of a "racial reckoning" but this is not borne out in the sources. There are far more POV connotations in the title "racial unrest" than "racial reckoning" but that's a matter for that article's scope. If there is a parent topic for the "racial reckoning", it is "Black Lives Matters protests" (which is presently not split out from its own section) and not "racial unrest". I would be interested in what extensive coverage describes the "racial reckoning" (or even changes in public polling, consumer habits, cultural pressure on institutions/businesses) as a result or facet of "unrest". As for forking, this article (and source coverage) existed well before that one. czar 01:02, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

  I just did a Google News search, and "2020 racial unrest" leads over "2020 racial reckoning" by nearly a 3:1 ratio. But it's immaterial. This RfC is about whether we should have two articles on essentially the same topic. An article renaming matter (e.g. to "2020 United States race-related protests", or whatever) is a WP:RM matter and has no effect on the merge question.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:35, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• Strong agree. This article reads more as someone's personal thesis, and I think even the name of this article sounds like it violates WP:NPOV. I see no reason why this can't be part of the broader "racial unrest" article. — Czello 08:08, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
• Agree. As several others have already commented, this article's title is much more POV-charged than the target's. I think this either needs to be renamed or merged. Bensci54 (talk) 17:04, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Czar. Reliable sources are discussing a different topic, i.e. the coverage on social effects of the protest movement rather than only the riots and violence which attract the headlines. I do share Dimadick's concern that "[a] merger would likely eliminate any coverage on social effects of the protest movement, in favor of covering only the riots and violence which attract the headlines" which may make it unnecessarily larger without improvement. I also do not see how the title is POV when it is used by reliable sources, including racial reckoning itself. I could have maybe agreed for 2020 United States racial injustice reckoning but 2020 United States racial reckoning is perfectly fine. I just noticed that in July there already was an AfD which resulted in keep. The closure stated that "The question is whether this is original research by synthesis" which I think can and has been improved, so I believe that for a merge proposal it would have been better to wait a bit more. Davide King (talk) 03:08, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
• Support. This article is a WP:POVFORK tying together various race-related events this year into a WP:SYNTHesized narrative, and justifying itself in the AfD by pointing to various media articles that happened to converge on the term "reckoning". I saw this a while back after its AfD, could hardly believe it survived, and was going to nominate it again once some time had passed. (In fact, 11 out of 18 participants there wanted to delete or merge.) But now would be an excellent opportunity to merge this into a much more well-rounded article. Yes, all these sociocultural changes and upheaval are a part of the overall unrest, sources treat them as all a part of the same overall subject, and artificially splitting these selected items off like this is POV and OR. This stuff can easily be covered there with WP:Due weight. Crossroads ^-talk- 08:19, 25 September 2020 (UTC) added parenthetical Crossroads ^-talk- 16:20, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support merge - I could've sworn I already voted for this, but I suppose not. Anyway, the two topics seem highly correlated with one another. I mentioned before that the racial reckoning article seems like it was derived from a "Reactions" section, and now it looks like the racial unrest article is the perfect place to put it as such. Love of Corey (talk) 07:43, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
  • @Love of Corey: Just FYI, the merge proposal moved. Your original support is here. — Czello 07:56, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Oh, okay. Thanks. Love of Corey (talk) 03:25, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

• Strongly support merge - Can be telescoped into the broader racial unrest article. -- Veggies (talk) 18:47, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
• Agree with merge There do not need to be two articles, one describing the events and one describing social reaction. They should be part of the same article. Cynistrategus (talk) 03:09, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
• Support. – As per Crossroads. And if the merger doesn't go ahead, the two articles should cross-reference each other much more clearly. Gazelle55 (talk) 17:48, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Lean toward support. – I still think this was best but Czar raises some important points (see our discussion below). Gazelle55 (talk) 14:17, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support merge It is redundant to have separate articles on the topic. Both articles are discussing the same thing and one can fit within the other for ease of access for future readers. I prefer merging the Racial reckoning article into the larger Unrest article. Also, this article reads more like a college student's thesis rather than a proper encyclopedia article of the subject, which itself is an issue. RopeTricks (talk) 16:25, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

• Comment - So what's the status on the merge? It's been a week since the last vote. Are we proceeding with it or not? Love of Corey (talk) 06:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
  • About to list it at WP:ANRFC. I believe this needs a definite closure. Crossroads ^-talk- 16:20, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
• No one has actually addressed the substance of the opposition. (1) The social reckoning has better sourcing than the "unrest," which is, at best, an overview article of other discrete events. (2) That the merger would make the social reckoning an "reaction/effect" of the "unrest," when the sources describe it as an independent phenomenon from protests/"unrest". (3) That even were it to be shoehorned into the "unrest" article, which doesn't make sense for the aforementioned reasons, it would still have enough coverage by length to warrant a summary style split. Altogether the support bullets above read as WP:IDONTLIKEIT and do not even attempt to address the distinctions in sourcing, which have been amply discussed both elsewhere on this talk page and at length in the July AfD. czar 17:02, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
  • You are entitled to your opinion, but as is clear both above and at the AfD, most other Wikipedians aren't buying it, and have explained repeatedly the problems with this article. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:19, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
    • Regarding (1), I don't think whether the word reckoning is used in sources is overly important compared to whether they treat this as a separate phenomenon. In that vein regarding (2), having looked through the first several sources for the article, all of them mention the protests/unrest (some at length, though that varies significantly). We could look at that point further if you like. Regarding (3), I don't object to having a shorter summary in that article (to keep the length shorter) and this as the full article, but if that is what we are doing we should more clearly indicate this as such. Gazelle55 (talk) 16:01, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
      • There are dozens of sources in this article, so yes, would need to look beyond simply whatever the first several present. The use of "reckoning" in the source itself should be instructive but has never been the point of this article. Entire sections, such as those on consumer behavior and cultural changes, whether or not they use the word "reckoning" in particular, are described in sources as a distinct social phenomenon from the protests. E.g., look at the "Source dump" section below alone or to the sources discussed in the AfD. For the next point, the titling of the "unrest" article is aggressively non-neutral, given its implication of violence (see examples at unrest) and based on the sourcing in this article, it would be incorrect to portray changes in consumer behavior and other social/economic changes as a "reaction" to either "unrest" or the protests. No one has proposed the summary style version you suggested because if they did, they could just merge the content without affecting this article. czar 23:34, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
        • Thanks for your thoughts. I do see your points and so I will be changing my !vote to "Lean towards support" in a second. In general I agree that the reckoning is a different phenomenon from the protests, but the reckoning was clearly caused by the attention to the issue generated by the protests (would anyone suggest they both happened in the same months by coincidence?) and this needs to be reflected in the content. I think the best way to do this is through a merger, though if there is a better way somebody could suggest it. As for what the sources say, I looked through many more and nearly every one connects the reckoning to "protests" or "civil unrest" or something in this vein (including 5 of 7 in the "Consumer behavior" section you mentioned). The academic articles collection below includes only two from this year (and this article is about this year specifically), and both connect the reckoning to Black Lives Matter right at the top. Regarding the title of the other article, perhaps it could be changed, but that would be a whole separate discussion. And my bad, I thought you were suggesting the summary style version, though I see now you prefaced it "even if ...". If you have more thoughts let me know. If not, I agree with Crossroads that this should move to WP:ANRFC. Gazelle55 (talk) 14:13, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
          • One final note. I just realized the source dump you mentioned is separate from the academic source list, so I looked through some of those too. Every one I checked (didn't have time to look through all of them) connected the reckoning to the protests, usually right near the top. So I think a merger is appropriate, and if not, significant cross-referencing between the articles. Gazelle55 (talk) 14:36, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose—I didn't bother !voting before because the supporting comments above seemed so patently absurd to me I figured this proposal was obviously dead. I would note that the two currently-redlinked accounts above each have only a handful of edits this year, and one seems to have come out of four months of inactivity just to make the !vote and do nothing else since.
  I'm surprised to notice just now that all of the academic journal articles I've seen mentioning this topic aren't in this Wikipedia article and so far it's just popular press articles... but often ones that use the word "reckoning" in their headline, anyways, indicating its firm independent notability.
  It's clearly a notable topic in a country with a long, deep history of racial issues and trends which have come to a cusp on multiple fronts in 2020, not just some subordinate facet of protests related to police brutality and racially disparate "criminal justice" system outcomes. The drive-by derogatory comments about the article to accompany supporting !votes should not be taken as evidence of serious editorial consensus. This all seems to be repeating the pattern of the AfD, wherein as the closer noted the supporting !voters also did not engage with the sources or qualitative opposing arguments.
  I mean, a re-appraisal of stuff like the terms "master bedroom" or "master/slave" as computer hard drive technical terms? Or renewed efforts to actually count and map the many real estate deeds that still contain language forbidding Jews or non-whites from owning the property, even though it hasn't been legal for more than seventy years? That stuff has nothing to do with police brutality, except the commonality of racism, which unfortunately is hardly a confined or siloed thing in the United States. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 21:35, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Good idea to add more academic articles in addition to the journalistic sources included here. Regarding your main point, though, the protests are not just about police violence, even though that was the original trigger with the George Floyd protests. The first sentence of the unrest article states: "The 2020 United States racial unrest is an ongoing wave of civil unrest, comprising protests and riots, against systemic racism towards Black people in the United States, notably in the form of police violence." So I don't think by including the material from this article there we would be implying other issues are subordinate to policing issues. Gazelle55 (talk) 16:09, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
    • Merging social reckoning content to the Reactions section of the "unrest" article would literally subordinate the content beneath an article entirely about policing issues, yes. czar 23:34, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
      • I disagree. If you look at the sentence I copied in, the protests are chiefly about police brutality but also about other issues. This is also reflected in the body of the article, for instance the section on removing Confederate monuments. It is perfectly possible for the article to say the protests started over police brutality but later induced a reckoning over other issues too, so I don't think the objection holds any weight. I actually tend towards thinking we do readers a disservice by not making that clear and having two disconnected articles. Gazelle55 (talk) 14:24, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support From all the arguments above. No need to have this kind os content split for this subject. Regards, GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 19:57, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

DiAngelo

@Stonkaments, what is your objection to this in-line attributed fact? That the reckoning has propelled DiAngelo's career, a fact affirmed by the NYT, is directly relevant to the article. czar 05:41, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

The current phrasing of "rose to prominence" conveys that quite satisfactorily, doesn't it? The previous version struck me as WP:PUFFERY Stonkaments (talk) 05:54, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

No, "prominent" pales in comparison to "phenomenon". It's in-text attributed to the newspaper of record. It's not contested that she is a public phenomenon by public demand. There should be no question of puffery. Feel free to offer a suitable replacement if you don't like that word, but I don't see the basis for the revert based on how it's sourced. czar 06:02, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Do you have any other source that supports calling DiAngelo a "phenomenon"? The sources I've seen all mention her book topping best-selling lists, of course, but nothing in the way of "phenomenon". They simply call her a professor, author, diversity consultant, etc. All of which leads me to believe the article text is accurate and appropriate as is. Stonkaments (talk) 06:18, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Why does it need a second source if it's in-line attributed? This is the main profile on her, covering how she got where she is and is sought as a speaker by a litany of major institutions (who are all competing to provide anti-racist training). The only other sources that go into her exorbitant speaker fees are right-wing rags. The point isn't to cover her speaking fees or best-seller here, but to briefly note how the reckoning has propelled her career. Rise to prominence is mild in comparison. czar 06:51, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Continued coverage

This topic continues to be referenced and covered as distinct from 2020 "racial unrest" (which, additionally, I think time has borne out as an inadequate title).

Americans were living through history in 2020 as the country was forced to reconcile the past and the present. ... No matter where you turned, you couldnt ignore reality. America was the epicenter of a racial reckoning.
— Chavez, Nicole (December 2020). "The year America confronted racism". CNN. Retrieved May 2, 2021.

czar 05:58, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• Payne, Daniel (May 25, 2021). "White America: Awakened?". Politico. Retrieved June 11, 2021.

I agree, this is still being regulary referenced as a distinctive 2020 social shift, and "unrest" doesn't really cover it. There are hundreds of Wikipedia articles on institutional name changes, etc, that would most usefully link directly to an article specific to the racial reckoning.--Pharos (talk) 22:27, 13 December 2021 (UTC)