Strangely, People Don't Think Race Relations Are Improving
Only 39 percent of American voters think black-white relations are improving. And that's the optimists: Thirteen percent of black voters think race relations are getting better. What's the deal, America? Haven't you noticed our black president?
(Or, maybe, the problem is that everyone did notice our black president, but not in a nice way? And then a small but loud group of white people started insinuating that he is actually some kind of foreigner, and emailing each other explicitly racist jokes? And that small but loud group is actually one of our two major political parties? Just speculating, though! It could just be that black folks are intractably pessimistic.)
Oh, America, we had so much hope after the beer summit! Sixty-two percent of American voters thought race relations were improving last July, during the fantastically gripping and important news story of "The Time Barack Obama Had Beer With a Cop and a Harvard Professor." How naive we all were, to have believed that a short meeting over Red Stripe and Blue Moon would set this country back on the path of tolerance and openness from which it has never wavered!
Meanwhile, even fewer voters—21 percent—believe relations between white folks and Hispanic folks are improving, while just 16 percent think relations between blacks and Hispanics are getting better. But a good new immigration law will solve that, right?
