Republicans and Democrats can agree on this one: President Obama’s hope of
sweeping in a new era of “post racial” politics in America has been an utter failure.
A new Associated Press poll found that racial prejudice has increased
slightly since 2008. Relying upon testing methods created with the help of
several top universities, responses to the online poll were measured through questions
that explicitly asked respondents about racist attitudes, and through an
experimental test that measured “implicit views” toward race without asking
questions about that topic directly.
In all, 51% of Americans now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared
with 48% in a similar 2008 survey when Obama was vying to become America’s first black president. When measured by an implicit racial
attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56%,
up from 49% during the last presidential election. In both tests, the share of
Americans expressing pro-black attitudes fell.
AP reports that most Americans express anti-Hispanic sentiments, too. In an AP survey
done in 2011, 52% of non-Hispanic whites expressed anti-Hispanic
attitudes. That figure rose to 57% in the implicit test. The survey on
Hispanics had no past data for comparison.
The increasing polarization in the American electorate – and, I suspect, the
increasingly prevalent “makers vs. takers” attitude that was elevated by the
tea party movement – also influenced the survey.
According to AP, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express
racial prejudice in the questions measuring explicit racism (79% among
Republicans compared with 32% among Democrats). The implicit test found little
difference between the two parties, with a majority of both Democrats and
Republicans holding anti-black feelings (55% of Democrats and 64% of
Republicans), as did about half of political independents (49%).
The survey found that, by virtue of racial prejudice, Obama could lose 5
percentage points off his share of the popular vote in the Nov. 6 contest
against Republican challenger Mitt Romney. However, Obama also stands to
benefit from a 3 percentage point gain due to pro-black sentiment, researchers
said. Overall, that means an estimated net loss of 2 percentage points due to
anti-black attitudes.
