Like many countries, America once practised slavery (before fighting a civil war resulting in its abolition) and racial discrimination (before the success of the civil rights movement). Critics of the United States sometimes assert that racism and racial discrimination strongly persist in America. The evidence suggests otherwise.
The vast majority of Americans have favourable views of people of other races
The Pew Forum’s 2002 survey found more British, French and Germans than Americans saying they had little in common with people of other races and ethnicity.[1] An overwhelming majority of black, Hispanic and non-Hispanic white Americans express favourable views of each other as racial groups. A Pew Research poll in 2008 found that 82% of white Americans have a favourable view of black Americans, and 80% of blacks have a favourable view of whites. 87% of whites and 82% of blacks report having a friend of a different race. 77% of whites and 69% of blacks think whites and blacks either get along very well or pretty well.
Opinion of Blacks |
Whites |
Blacks |
Very/Mostly Favourable |
82% |
84% |
Very/Mostly Unfavourable |
8% |
10 |
Opinion of Whites |
Whites |
Blacks |
Very/Mostly Favourable |
92% |
80% |
Very/Mostly Unfavourable |
1% |
12% |
Source: Race, Ethnicity and Campaign ’08 - People…Can We All Get Along?, Paul Taylor, Pew Research Center, 17 January 2008
Opposition to interracial dating is low and in steep generational decline
In another Pew poll,[2] 77% of Americans agreed that it is “alright for blacks and whites to date each other”. Significantly, disagreement with this proposition appears to be a generational issue. While 50% of those born before 1927 agreed (and 43% disagreed), 91% of those born after 1977 agreed (and 8% disagreed). 22% of Americans have a relative in an interracial marriage.[3]
Americans are particularly welcoming of immigration
An international poll in 2005 by the German Marshall Fund found almost identical proportions of Americans and Britons describing immigration as a good thing (61% and 62%) and describing it as a bad thing (28% and 29%). Polls of the French found immigration described as a good thing rather than a bad thing by 53% to 46%. For Germans, 33% said immigration was a good thing and 59% said it was a bad thing.[4]
Black Americans do not feel racism is the main barrier to social mobility
Asked to choose between the statements ‘Racial discrimination is the main reason why many black people can’t get ahead’ and ‘Blacks who can’t get ahead are mostly responsible for their own condition’, 66% of all Americans agreed with the latter. Among black people, 53% agreed – and only 30% of black Americans blamed racial discrimination.[5] Where black people have been held back by ‘the system’, it has arguably been owing to well-intentioned welfare spending, not racial malice. Welfare reform in the 1990s dramatically reduced poverty, child poverty and unemployment among black Americans.[6] Controversially, America’s affirmative action policies aim to correct for historic discrimination by hiring blacks and minorities at higher rates, and accepting them onto college courts at higher rates, than their objective qualities such as educational background would alone justify.
Tony Blair and the Guardian journalist Jonathan
Freedland have both referred to Colin Powell - “a black man, born in
poverty”, who rose to be Chief of America’s Armed Forces and Secretary
of State and asked if this could happen in Britain.[7]
The US military was 12.4% black in 2006, in proportion to the black
share of America’s population. Historically the proportion has been
much higher.[8] On the other hand, blacks make up only 6% of the military’s general officers.[9]
The American criminal justice system treats black and white criminals the same
It is argued that the American criminal justice system is racially biased, given the large numbers of black criminals arrested and jailed. But for thirty years, studies comparing the race of criminals reported by crime victims to the arrest data have found that the two match.[10]
Similarly, although the law-abiding majority of black Americans are the greatest beneficiaries of tough policies to deal with crime in black neighbourhoods, it is argued that black criminals are sentenced disproportionately, and much academic effort has also been expended to determine if there is a racial disparity in sentencing. Multiple studies of different offences and many large urban areas have found that insofar as a difference exists, then depending on the state, black felons either receive disproportionately lenient sentences or where they tend to receive higher sentences, it is explicable in terms of previous convictions or the seriousness of the offence. Heather McDonald of the Manhattan Institute notes:
"In 1997, criminologists Robert Sampson and Janet Lauritsen reviewed the massive literature on charging and sentencing. They concluded that “large racial differences in criminal offending,” not racism, explained why more blacks were in prison proportionately than whites and for longer terms. A 1987 analysis of Georgia felony convictions, for example, found that blacks frequently received disproportionately lenient punishment. A 1990 study of 11,000 California cases found that slight racial disparities in sentence length resulted from blacks’ prior records and other legally relevant variables. A 1994 Justice Department survey of felony cases from the country’s 75 largest urban areas discovered that blacks actually had a lower chance of prosecution following a felony than whites did and that they were less likely to be found guilty at trial. Following conviction, blacks were more likely to receive prison sentences, however—an outcome that reflected the gravity of their offenses as well as their criminal records.
"Another criminologist—easily as liberal as Sampson—reached the same conclusion in 1995: “Racial differences in patterns of offending, not racial bias by police and other officials, are the principal reason that such greater proportions of blacks than whites are arrested, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned,” Michael Tonry wrote in Malign Neglect."
The election of Barack Obama
Many doubted that Barack Obama could become America's President and suspected the opinion polls predicting his election were wrong. In reality the polls were very accurate and America's 44th President comes from a community that faced segregation only half-a-century ago. His election follows the elevation of other African-Americans such as Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas and Colin Powell to high office. America has elected a representative of a visibly minority community before any European nation.
[1] Kohut, Andrew and Bruce Stokes (2006), America Against The World, Holt Paperbacks, New York, p.51
[2] ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’, Pew Research Center, 14 March 2006, at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/304/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner
[3] Ibid
[4] Kohut, Andrew and Bruce Stokes (2006), America Against The World, Holt Paperbacks, New York, p.153
[5] ‘66% - Personal Factors Limit Black Progress’, Pew Research Center, at http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=426
[6] 'The Continuing Good News About Welfare Reform', Robert Rector and Patrick F. Fagan, The Heritage Foundation, 6 February 2003, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1620.cfm
[7] 'Prime Minister Blair on the Sept. 11 Attacks' A NewsHouse with Jim Lehrer Transcript, PBS, 2 October 2001, at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/terroristattack/blair_10-2.html and Freedland, Jonathan (1998), Bring Home The Revolution, Fourth Estate
[8] 'Black Military Recruits Declining - Latinos on the Rise', Nisa Islam Muhammed, New American Media, 20 July 2007, at http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=7e0f550e78cbf69015266d5c3f3ef7c7
[9] 'After 60 years, black officers in U.S. military rare, Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press, 23 July 2008, at http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2008/07/23/6246676-ap.html
[10] ‘Is the Criminal-Justice System Racist?’, Heather McDonald, City Journal, Spring 2008, at http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_criminal_justice_system.html
