Lola Adesioye

According to a new CBS/New York Times poll, perceptions of race relations are at an all time high. They say:

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. 

It was also found however that:

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. 

I find this slightly baffling…. So race relations are better, but 51% of black people polled (nearly the same amount as who claim that race relations are better) apparently still believe that white people are more likely to get ahead? 

In reality then, does this improvement in the perception of race relations, make any real difference to people’s lives?

The structures that support racism or discrimination are actually run, created and carried out by people so if race relations are better then surely there’d be less discrimination and more of an equal playing field? There seems to be a contradiction here in what people are saying.

But note that:

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. 

So white people and black people are seeing two very different things which isn’t surprising or anything new… but it makes more sense to me that if you believed that race relations had improved as – apparently the majority of white people in this poll do – that you’d also believe that there would be less discrimination (as they also do). 

A question though: If people really are on more of an equal playing field, how does one account for the stark racial disparities that still exist? For example, the unemployment rate for black people is currently way higher than the national unemployment rate. Is it that black people just work less, don’t work hard enough, are stupid etc? Or is it to do with education, socio-economic factors, class etc? And if the latter, how do you separate those out from race in this country? 

What do surveys like this really tell us about the realities of American life and what’s really going on?

What are your thoughts?