Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe racism against Black Americans is widespread throughout the country, a recent Gallup poll finds.
According to the data, about 64% of Americans believe that racist beliefs and actions have become pervasive in the nation, and tied with 2021 as the highest recorded level since the survey began in 2008.
Gallup found that 83% of Black adults were likely to answer “yes” about racism being prevalent in the U.S., with 61% of white adults responding similarly.
When originally asked by Gallup in 2008, only 56% of Americans believed racism to be widespread. Data readings in the first year of the Obama Presidency saw a dip in the readings that would substantially reverse by the end of President Trump’s first term in office.
In recent years, the Republican Party and Trump have insisted that a proliferation of anti-white racism exists, but many Americans don’t share that view. Only 29% of Americans responded “yes” that racism against white people is widespread, compared to 41% in 2016.
Polling also indicates that Americans believe civil rights for Black Americans have improved during their lifetime, but this figure is lower than it was in previous years.
Black and white sentiments over the perceived progress of civil rights is the widest since Gallup began tracking this data in 1995. Across Black, white, and hispanic adults the percieved progress of Civil Rights for Black adults is down 32%, 27%, and 19% respectively from their peaks during the Obama administration.
American University Professor Omekongo Dibinga said, “Every time we fought for rights in this country, we’ve made rights more expansive for other people. I think that’s one of the greatest legacies of the Civil Rights Act because when you look at it, you’re saying that this country belongs to everybody.”
Gallup’s findings are based on a study done in June that sampled all ethnic/racial groups in the proper proportion of the United States population.
I greatly agree racism needs to be countered, and Black Americans and Canadians (though the latter nation likely somewhat less so) have suffered most of the ugliness.
Nevertheless, I’ve noticed, especially over the last half-decade, that there are injustices and victimizations that get mis-reported or ignored as though those injustices/victimizations are ideologically and therefore socially/politically acceptable. The media (i.e. news, literary, social and entertainment), though especially the mainstream news outlets, can be largely credited for the creation and maintenance of current societal/institutional racial standards and even hypocrisies in Western society.
Anti-Caucasian racism or violence, as a timely example, can be expected to not receive objective coverage, if any at all, by the neo-liberal news media, quite unlike when the racial makeup is reversed.
Their justification? I find it likely they deem such occurrences, however newsworthy, as not being a social/societal problem and therefore un-worthy of proper coverage. Over my decades of news consumption, I’ve heard this lame justification more than once, although it’s not even their professional/objective prerogative to do so in the first place.
Such reporters/editors appear to feel they can be both journalistically activistic AND truly objective/professional. They, however, cannot. On the contrary, they’re placing the profession and themselves in disrepute, to put it mildly.
According to my journalism instructor approximately three decades ago, the probable rarity of such an assault (in this case, anti-Caucasian racism or violence) would make it newsworthy; and the opposite would apply to the common or usual occurrence, such as that resulting from a recurring social/societal problem.
And, all the more disturbing and concerning about that news media’s failure to condemn or even properly cover such racist assaults is that it encourages the justice system to not objectively/fully charge and prosecute those responsible.
Not only can the racists (of color) not be held properly criminally accountable, they may also notice the news outlets downplaying or omitting the racial motivation behind such serious crimes, perhaps leaving the impression that the inexcusably vicious acts were somehow morally justified. It’s in our flawed, if not corrupted, human nature (especially as children) to observe such societal cues and take advantage of them.
… On such matters, the media are far beyond just being biased.