Half of Voters Don't Think Most Blacks Victimized by Cops

Following the Ferguson grand jury decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown and consequent protests last week, Rasmussen released a new poll showing half of likely voters do not think police treat African Americans unfairly.  The survey was conducted December 1-2 among 1000 likely voters.

Forty-nine percent “think most black Americans do not receive unfair treatment from the police” while 38% think they do. To put this number in perspective, 11% of the respondents identify as African American, so around one-quarter of non African Americans believe the police treat African Americans unfairly.

Of course, there are striking differences of opinion based on the racial identification of the respondent. Eighty-two percent of African American voters say they are treated unfairly by police, while 56% of white voters say they are not. One out of five African Americans do not think they are treated unfairly by the police.

On Monday, Obama held numerous meetings at the White House in response to issues at the forefront of the Ferguson unrest. The polling was conducted the evening after the meetings so it is hard to say if the meetings had any influence on opinions, but voters were not impressed with Obama’s efforts or involvement. Fifty-nine percent rate his response as “fair” or “poor.”

And Obama hasn’t had much success with public opinion on whether his presidency has improved race relations. A paltry 8% say race relations have improved under Obama, and 90% say they are worse or the same.

Most devastating to the leftist narrative that the government needs to step in and “improve conditions” for young African Americans is that only 8% say it is the government’s job to do so. Forty-one percent say it is the parents’ job, and 29% say it is the job of young people themselves.