Negative Views Of Race Relations Reach All-Time High - CBS/NYT poll
Source: CBS NEWS
CBS NEWS July 13, 2016, 6:30 PM
By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto
Views of Race Relations
Following the shooting of two black men by white police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota and the subsequent shooting of five police officers by a black gunman in Dallas, negative views of race relations in the U.S. have risen to a level not seen since the 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the Rodney King verdict. Now just 26 percent of Americans think race relations in the U.S. are mostly good - an 11 point drop from a year ago - while 69 percent say they are mostly bad. Back in May 1992, 68 percent said race relations were bad.
Positive opinions of race relations rose above 50 percent in the 2000s, and reached a high of 66 percent in April 2009, shortly after President Barack Obama took office. But those positive assessments have been dropping steadily since mid-2014, after the conflicts between blacks and the police in Ferguson, Missouri following the shooting of Michael Brown by a white police officer.
White Americans have traditionally been more optimistic about race relations than black Americans, but in this poll their views are similar: whites are just as pessimistic as blacks about the state of race relations in the U.S.
And there is growing pessimism about whether race relations are improving. Now just 9 percent of Americans think race relations are getting better, while 59 percent think they are getting worse. A year ago, 21 percent thought race relations were improving, and 38 percent thought they were getting worse.
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/negative-views-of-race-relations-reach-all-time-high-cbsnyt-poll/
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