This poll won’t be a surprise to any person of color, but it is important for people who aren’t the targets of racial prejudice to soak in this information. According to the figures of a recent poll given by the Associated Press, racism is popular and growing. According to the poll, 51 percent of Americans expressed an anti-black prejudice. This figure had actually risen since 2008. According to the article:
Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to express outright racial prejudice, 79 percent to 32 percent. But the implicit test found that the two are far closer in attitudes, with 55 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans having anti-black feelings. Experts aren’t really surprised by the findings. “As much as we’d hope the impact of race would decline over time … it appears the impact of anti-black sentiment on voting is about the same as it was four years ago,” said a Stanford University professor who helped develop the survey.
What this means is that every person of good will must renew the struggle against racism. The Leviathan of racial prejudices lives just below the surface of our lives. It is fine to recognize progress, but as long as our prisons are filled with persons of color, and our halls of power are not, we all have serious work to do.