Racial prejudice grows under Obama admin.: AP surveys

Racial prejudice in the U.S. has worsened since Barack Obama was elected the country`s first black president in 2009, the results of Associated Press surveys have found.

According to the 2012 Associated Press polls on the racial attitudes of Americans whose results were released Saturday, 51 percent of Americans have explicit anti-black sentiment openly displayed, up from 48 percent before Obama`s election in 2008. The portion of respondents who said they had implicit anti-black sentiment latent in the mind also increased to 56 percent from 49 percent over the same period.

Racial prejudice was found to exist in both conservative and liberal Americans. The polls discovered that 79 percent of Republican Party supporters and 32 percent of Democratic Party supporters had explicit racial prejudice. The levels of implicit racism were similar among supporters of the Republican Party (64 percent) and the Democratic Party (55 percent).

The Associated Press conducted the online polls of 1,071 adults between Aug. 30 and Sept. 11 in collaboration with Stanford University, the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago.

Explicit racial prejudice was measured by asking the respondents to link adjectives such as “friendly,” “law-abiding,” “idle” and “violent” with different races. Implicit prejudice was polled by asking what they felt after seeing the faces of people of different races.

Frederic Harris, director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, said that since Obama took power, racial polarization is fast progressing along with ideological and economical polarization. The existence of racial prejudice despite the president taking a cautious approach to racial issues and making no pro-black policies, is a dangerous sign that could prove detrimental to racial diversity in American society, he added.

The Associated Press said many blacks have expressed concern over the spread of anti-Obama sentiment, citing metaphorical comparisons of the president to a chimpanzee and massive distribution of propaganda posters with Obama depicted as a scarecrow being burned.

The New York Times, a liberal newspaper that is the most influential in the U.S., announced its support for Obama Saturday. In an editorial, the daily said, “He has formed sensible budget policies that are not dedicated to protecting the powerful, and has worked to save the social safety net to protect the powerless.” Though the U.S. economy has recovered slowly under his administration, it added, Americans should be all the more clearer in their choice in difficult times like these.

The Washington Post also threw its support for Obama Wednesday. The daily and the New York Times had backed him in the 2008 election as well.

The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, which rank No. 1 and No. 2 in circulation in the U.S. respectively, have remained neutral in presidential elections and not supported a candidate.

According to the American President Project, a think tank on U.S. presidents, 28 newspapers expressed support for Obama and 20 for rival candidate Mitt Romney as of Sunday.

mickey@donga.com