Standing In The Midst: Black Women, Structural Inequality, and the Black State of Emergency

The data has always been there. Now it has a name.

In 1962, Malcolm X named it plainly: the most disrespected, most unprotected, most neglected person in America is the Black woman. Over sixty years later, the federal statistics confirm he was right.

Standing In The Midst: Black Women, Structural Inequality, and the Black State of Emergency is a research-driven booklet that puts the data the country ignores front and center. Written by Thairu Obuya and published by RUN It BAC Media in association with Team RBG's Black State of Emergency campaign, this booklet examines six domains of structural inequality bearing down on Black women simultaneously — and refuses to look away from any of them.

Maternal mortality rates nearly four times those of White women. A wage gap that a college degree cannot close. The highest student debt burden of any demographic group. Homicide victimization rates four times the national average. A media ecosystem built on controlling images. A political system that extracts Black women's civic energy and returns inadequate policy protection.

Drawing on the legacy of Sojourner Truth's Ain't I a Woman, the organizing philosophy of Ella Baker, and current research from the CDC, the Institute for Women's Policy Research, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and leading scholars in public health, labor economics, and media studies — Standing In The Midst is not a grief document. It is a clarity document.

It is also a coalition document. The final chapter makes the case that the gender conflict fracturing Black communities is a distraction from the structural emergency both sides are living inside — and that the path forward is a female/male coalition built on shared data, shared urgency, and community-centered organizing.

This is the booklet you hand someone when they ask why the Black State of Emergency is real. This is the report you bring to the table when the conversation tries to reduce structural crisis to personal failure.

Black Women are standing in the midst. This book tells you exactly what they're standing in.

WHAT YOU GET

• Instant digital download — 59-page print-quality PDF
• 7 research chapters with embedded data charts
• Historical context: Malcolm X, Sojourner Truth, Ella Baker
• Source notes and full research citations
• Formatted for print — take it into the field

$5.99 — Instant Access

Your purchase directly supports the Black State of Emergency campaign and the ongoing research work of RUN It BAC Media and Outlaw Radeo.

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