Poll: Majority of Whites Believe ‘American Society Is Racist’

A majority of white voters believe that “American society is racist,” according to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ)/NBC News poll released on Tuesday.

Described as the “deepest look at race in America in two decades,” the comprehensive survey found that, overall, 56 percent think American society is “racist.”

While 51 percent of whites say American society is “racist,” 78 percent of Blacks and 60 percent of Hispanics believe American society is “racist.” The survey also found that 82 percent of Democrats think American society is “racist” compared to 30 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of independents.

As the Journal noted, voters, though, “remain split on the root cause of racism and how to address racial bias and discrimination”

The survey, conducted July 9-12 with a margin of error of +/- 3.27 percentage points, found that while 65 percent of Black voters “said that people of color experience racial discrimination because it is built into American society, including U.S. policies and institutions,” a plurality of white voters, 48 percent, “attributed racial discrimination to individuals who hold racist views, as opposed to institutions and society as a whole.”

During the Coronavirus pandemic and the George Floyd protests, President Donald Trump has lost a significant amount of ground in the polls to former Vice President Joe Biden, who has a double-digit lead in national polls and significant leads in nearly every swing state.

Biden has opened up his lead against Trump as the president’s approval ratings on the Coronavirus pandemic and race relations have plummeted.

The NBC News/WSJ survey found that 71 percent “believe that race relations are either very or fairly bad, a 16-point increase since February.”

A Fox News poll released over the weekend found that a majority disapprove of the way Trump is handling race relations. That poll also found that a majority of Americans also believe Biden will better handle race relations as president than Trump. In fact, Biden had a 21-point lead over Trump on the issue of race relations in the Fox News poll.