For First Time Ever Balance Of Blacks In Poll See Net Positive In Race Relations

Poll: Blacks See Improved Race Relations

In summary:

When you have a group of people with ARBITRARY opinions about the racial state of the nation about their views and in 6 months their views jump from 29% positive to 51% positive IT IS NOT THE NATION that has CHANGED so abruptly in this span of time.

It is THOSE PEOPLE who have CHANGED their subjective views.

In this case they GOT WHAT THEY WANT and thus they are happy.

The condition of RACISM did not increase or decline during this interval.

This is why polling for OPINION is so unreliable.

CBS News/NY Times Survey Finds That For First Time Ever, Majority Of Blacks Say Relations Between Blacks And Whites Are Good

CBS) For the first time in CBS News polling history, a majority of blacks are casting race relations in the United States in a positive light.

Fifty-nine percent of African-Americans - along with 65 percent of whites - now characterize the relationship between blacks and whites in America as "good," according to a new CBS News/New York Times survey.

Less than a year ago, just 29 percent of blacks said race relations were good. The percentage of blacks who say race relations are bad, meanwhile, has dropped from 59 percent last July to 30 percent today.

Sixty-one percent of blacks say there has been real progress in getting rid of racial discrimination since the 1960s. That's up from 37 percent in December 1996. Eighty-seven percent of whites say there has been real progress since the 1960s.

Despite the increasingly positive perceptions, however, most blacks feel that discrimination lingers. Asked who has a better chance to get ahead in U.S. society, fifty-one percent of blacks said white people do. Forty-four percent said both races had equal opportunity, while just one percent said blacks had an advantage.

White people, by contrast, were far more likely to see a level playing field, with 62 percent saying both races had equal opportunity. Roughly one in four white said white people have a better chance to get ahead, while seven percent of whites said black people have the better opportunities.

Still, this data offers encouraging trends: the percentage of blacks who say that both races have equal opportunities has risen by twelve points since last July.

Perhaps surprisingly, most Americans do not directly credit President Obama for improving race relations. Fifty-nine percent of blacks and 65 percent of whites say race relations have stayed the same since Mr. Obama took office. But one in three blacks do say his presidency has meant a positive change in race relations.

The Obama Administration And African-American Optimism:

The election of the first-ever African-American president and his time in office has prompted an outpouring of optimism among African-Americans, despite the tough economic times.

Seventy-percent of African-Americans now say the country is headed in the right direction - more than twice the percentage of white Americans (34 percent) who say as much.

Back in January, just before Mr. Obama took office, only 21 percent of blacks (and 14 percent of whites) said the country was headed in the right direction.

Forty-one percent of blacks say the economy is getting better, while just 19 percent say it is getting worse. Whites, by contrast, are less optimistic, with 24 percent saying the economy is improving and 25 percent saying it is worsening.

Blacks are also overwhelmingly positive about the president's work on ending the recession and the war in Iraq, with 80 percent saying he has made progress on ending the recession and 73 percent saying he has made progress on ending the war.