Obama's New Racial Reality, Still Divided
Whatever happened to "Obamamania?" Recent polls suggest that race relations have gotten worse since President Barack Obama's 2008 election -- or, at least, that more of us Americans think they have.
It didn't help anybody's feeling of sunny delight that the two latest polls were conducted in the wake of racial unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer.
Either way, the polls add fuel to the conservative portrayal of Obama as more of a divider than a uniter, although when I listen to some of those conservative voices, I can't tell whether they're bragging or complaining.
For example, only 6 percent of voters in battleground election states this fall say race relations have improved under the first African-American president, according to a Politico poll. Almost half (46 percent) say they've gotten worse and 48 percent say the dynamic has have remained about the same.
One thing that we did share across racial lines is gloom, according to the poll, although more white voters, 49 percent, said relations are worse, compared to 38 percent of African-Americans who said so.
Almost half -- 47 percent -- of both white and African-American voters said race relations were about the same.
Among Hispanic voters, 14 percent say relations have improved, 30 percent say they have worsened and 56 percent say they have stayed the same.
That's disappointing, but it also may be the sign of a new realism setting in after the euphoria of Obama's landmark election.
The good news may be that, compared to five years ago, a long-range national survey taken by the Pew Research Center and USA Today after Ferguson found that "overall perceptions of relations between blacks and whites are only modestly changed."
Although the number of black respondents who said blacks and whites get along "very well" or "pretty well" increased seven percentage points between 2007 and 2009 to 76 percent, the share that held that positive view has since dropped 12 points to 64 percent.
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