African Americans Feel Mistreated by Almost Every Major Civic Institution
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Pew has released a survey on public perception of the progress African Americans have made in the United States.
.With the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech approaching next week, Pew released today a new survey on public perception of the progress blacks have made in America since then. The top-level finding is unsurprising: African-Americans are much more pessimistic than whites are in rating the extent to which they still face inequality and unfairness in American society. And they're significantly more likely to say that a lot of work still needs to be done.
(The Daily Show recently captured these same awkwardly diverging views of reality with a less scientific survey.)
Economic and demographic indicators suggest that blacks in fact have not closed many of the divides that existed half a century ago when Dr. King spoke in Washington. Gaps between blacks and whites in household income and household wealth have actually widened since then. And gaps in poverty and homeownership rates have remained largely unchanged.
Of particular note are a set of questions posed in the survey about how blacks are treated today by some of the most important civic institutions in society: police departments, the justice system, public schools. Pew asked 2,231 nationally representative adults if they believed blacks in their communities were treated less fairly than whites by these and other elements of the community, including restaurants and stores.
MORE FROM THE ATLANTIC CITIES
Seventy percent of blacks felt this way about the police (no wonder). Meanwhile, only 37 percent of whites felt blacks were treated unfairly by police. Suspicion among blacks (and a stark divide in opinion with whites) remains notably high for elections as well (ahem).
The rest of the results are below.
And here's that Daily Show segment: