[NOTE: This post has been UPDATED]
The New York Times/CBS Poll released today found that
Barack Obama’s presidency seems to be altering the public perception of race relations in the United States. Two-thirds of Americans now say race relations are generally good and the percentage of blacks who say so has doubled since last July….
It’s worth looking at all 32 pages of the poll, both for what’s there and for what’s not. As for what’s there, in my opinion the most interesting finding was the answer to the Question 2, “Do you feel things in this country are generally going in the right direction or do you feel things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?”
70% of the black respondents thought things are generally going in the right direction, compared to only 34% of the whites. [This sentence has been rewritten to correct my original misstatement — jsr]
That response suggests what a number of the others questions seem to confirm, that blacks are much happier than whites about everything now that Obama is president. For example, blacks approve of the way Congress is doing its job by 44% to 41% while whites disapprove, 55% to 28%. Regarding “the condition of the national economy these days” (Question 12), 27% of blacks thought it very good or fairly good, compared to 10% of whites. As for whether “the economy is getting better, getting worse, or staying about the same” (Question 13), 41% of blacks thought it getting better, 19% getting worse. Only 24% of whites, by contrast, thought the economy is getting better, while 25% thought it getting worse.
Maybe “the public perception of race relations” has altered, in the rosy view of the Times/CBS pollsters, but the racial divide on major issues doesn’t seem to have been reduced at all.
Finally, I found it remarkable that in well over a hundred questions on issues of the day, the Times/CBS pollsters neglected to ask a single question about attitudes toward racial preferences. Maybe their editors thought that, on that score, no news was good news.
UPDATE [29 April]
Byron York notices the same black-white divide in the New York Times/CBS poll. Since blacks make up about 13% of American society and whites about 80%, York notes, this divide makes some of Obama’s policies appear more popular with most Americans than they in fact are.
There is a misprint here.
34% of White people think things are going in the right direction.
Not a misprint, a miswrite. I’ve now corrected my goof. Thanks for pointing out.