Americans regularly make major decisions about minorities and minority rights via the purely majoritarian process of direct democracy. Conflict over the substance of these policies occasionally reaches the US Supreme Court, but effects of the process of direct democracy on perceptions of minorities receive little attention. My recent study of […] Read more »
America’s race relations take hit after Zimmerman verdict
In the wake of the George Zimmerman case, U.S. views of race relations have taken a hit, and one-third of Americans say his acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin has shaken their confidence in the legal system, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. The survey found […] Read more »
Zimmerman verdict poll: Stark reaction by race
The not-guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman has produced dramatically different reactions among blacks and whites, with African Americans overwhelmingly disapproving of the jury’s decision and a bare majority of whites saying they approve of the outcome, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. … The new […] Read more »
Gulf Grows in Black-White Views of U.S. Justice System Bias
While 68% of blacks say the American justice system is biased against blacks, 25% of whites agree. Blacks’ attitudes about the justice system have remained virtually constant over the past 20 years, but whites have become less likely to perceive bias. [cont.] Frank Newport, Gallup Read more »
Fewer Blacks See Bias in Jobs, Income, and Housing
Black Americans are significantly less likely now than they were 20 years ago to cite discrimination as the main reason blacks on average have worse jobs, income, and housing than whites. Today, 37% of blacks say these differences are due to discrimination and 60% say they are caused by something […] Read more »
Polls fail on measuring racism
As the pollster for Florida’s first elected Hispanic governor (Bob Martinez, elected in 1986) and first Hispanic U.S. senator (Mel Martinez, elected in 2004), I have been called upon to try and measure the electoral impact of race through opinion surveys. In those and other campaigns in which my client […] Read more »