U.S. adults’ positive rating of relations between white and Black Americans is at its lowest point in more than 20 years — for the second consecutive year.
A new Gallup poll found that 42% of adults in the U.S. surveyed say relations between white and Black Americans are “very” or “somewhat” good, while 57% say the relations are “somewhat” or “very” bad.
Positive ratings of racial relations were at a high point in 2004, according to Gallup, when 72% of American adults said they were very or somewhat good. Gallup’s measurement of the subject has fluctuated, but remained steady — until 2015, when positive ratings plunged from 70% to 47%.
That year was the first in Gallup’s measurement that negative ratings surpassed positive ones, with 53% of Americans at the time saying that relations between white and Black adults were somewhat or very bad.
Positive views overtook negative ones on the matter again in 2016 and continued until 2019, when they inverted once more.
Gallup’s polls have found that white adults are more likely than Black adults to have positive ratings of their race relations. In the most recent poll, 43% of white Americans, compared to 33% of Black Americans, said relations between their races were very or somewhat good.
White adults have rated relations more positively than Black adults in all of Gallup’s polls except for 2001 and 2015.
Despite the current negative outlook on relations, Americans are optimistic about the future, with 57% saying they think a solution for relations between Black and white Americans will eventually be worked out.
SOURCE: US NEWS