… Approximately four in ten (41%) Americans overall agree that blacks and other minorities receive equal treatment as whites in the criminal justice system, compared to a slim majority (51%) who disagree. Perceptions of the fairness of the criminal justice system are heavily influenced by race, with nearly a 30-percentage […] Read more »
Sex, Drugs and Poverty in Red and Blue America
In the fall of 1969, Merle Haggard topped the Billboard country charts for four weeks with “Okie from Muskogee,” the song that quickly became the anthem of red America, even before we called it that. “We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee, we don’t take our trips on LSD, we don’t […] Read more »
The crisis of police legitimacy
As riots engulfed parts of Baltimore, and Americans everywhere were forced to confront police killings and other brutalities in minority communities, TV viewers and newspaper readers were exposed to a series of polls demonstrating the very different attitudes African-Americans and whites display toward our police. These statistics signal a crisis […] Read more »
Negative View of U.S. Race Relations Grows
Public perceptions of race relations in America have grown substantially more negative in the aftermath of the death of a young black man who was injured while in police custody in Baltimore and the subsequent unrest, far eclipsing the sentiment recorded in the wake of turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., last […] Read more »
Views on race relations hit two-decade low
Sixty-one percent of Americans now say race relations in the United States are bad, the highest percentage since 1992, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll, which finds that majorities of both whites and blacks now view race relations negatively. CONT. CBS News Read more »
Multiple Causes Seen for Baltimore Unrest
The public sees a number of contributing factors for the outbreak of violence and unrest in Baltimore last week. About six-in-ten (61%) say that “some people taking advantage of the situation to engage in criminal behavior” contributed a “great deal” to the unrest, while 56% say the same about tensions […] Read more »