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New poll says a third of Americans believe racism has never been a big problem

A new poll from CBS News shows that "book banning" is pretty unpopular: a whopping 85% of the country thinks it's wrong to ban books for ideological or racial reasons—though I note that the pollsters didn't bother to ask about banning books due to sexual content or adult language.

Liberals are touting this as evidence that liberal opposition to book banning is a political winner for liberals, and maybe it is. But as with so many polls like this, salience is the big unknown. Do most people really care a lot about book banning? Or do they just vaguely dislike it? There's no way to know.

In any case, I found this far more fascinating:

A lot of people apparently think that racism is no big thing anymore. But put that aside for a moment. A full 29% believe that racism was never a big deal.

That's not just a difference of opinion, that's flat out insane. But what's the cause? Is it mostly due to people wildly underestimating the effect of racism? Or is it due to an almost unbelievable ignorance of US history? I would really, really love to see a deeper dive into this.

63 thoughts on “New poll says a third of Americans believe racism has never been a big problem

  1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    I am surprised you don't already know the answer: Contemporary wokeness has so overly inflated the American tendency to racism that the wokescientious objectors have had to likewise downplay racism by the sane degree.

    1. jmac

      Exactly. We know where 25% of that third comes from, I am guessing that the rest come from those who don't actually self identify as Republican.

  2. Justin

    Only 30%? That's not too bad under the circumstances.

    "In this year's study, the prevalence of adult mental illness in the United States rose from 18.57%, or roughly 45 million people, to 19%, or approximately 47 million people."

    1. coral

      Agreed. With polls like these, people say what they are ideologically committed to presenting as truth, not what they really think. Plus there's a lot of ignorance, willful ignorance, hostility to the idea that racism is bad (or unjustifiable). I think it's more a measure of hostility to minorities in general.

  3. jjramsey

    One thing I noticed is that the question "How big a problem *is* racism in America's past?" isn't quite the same question as "How big a problem *was* racism in America's past?" The latter question indicates that racism was in the past and asks how big that problem used to be. The former question, on the other hand, asks whether than past racism is a problem in the present.

    That may skew the poll responses. One could easily see a situation where someone would agree that racism was a huge problem in the past, but believes that this past racism doesn't have much present-day impact.

    1. gesvol

      I think that might have been at least plausible. But it looks like the television crew took some short cuts with question wording on the graphics. When you dig into the actual poll with the actual questions, this is how the question was worded "Looking back over the history of America, do you think racism has been.....(a major problem, a minor problem, not a problem).

      In that context, in my mind any answer other than "a major problem" is absurd.

      1. Jerry O'Brien

        Thanks for finding that question wording. It's important.

        The actual wording is still different from Kevin's "never been a big problem". When I look at the actual phrasing, I see a possibility of people interpreting that as weighing the problem of racism against the whole span of American history, and I don't think it's crazy if a person inclines toward a sunny assessment that there has been more good than bad and that for most of the time America has been making progress against racism.

        I still can't get from there to "it's been a minor problem" myself, but it doesn't shock me that a lot of people could.

    2. Joseph Harbin

      Here's the actual wording of the question:

      17. Looking back over the history of America, do you think racism has been...
      A major problem: 71% (White: 69%; Black: 83%)
      A minor problem: 22% (White: 25%; Black: 13%)
      Not a problem: 7% (White: 7%; Black: 4%)

      While most of us would agree there is a "correct" answer, I think the takeaway that 93% of the country thinks racism has been a problem is not terrible.

    3. KazooGuy

      Good point. I'd like to see the survey, because the real question is "Is racism a problem for others?" vis a vis "Is racism a problem for you?" The only time I've ever been discriminated against due to mu race was when I went to see Stokely Carmichael speak and was told that white people had to sit upstairs.

  4. bokun59elboku

    Meh. Our biggest mistake was not utterly and thoroughly destroying the Confederacy when we had the chance. It never died nor did it really lose. Moving to Tennessee has taught me that and more. Up north where I grew up, you hear stories about how the south never really admitted defeat. Down here it breathes all day and all night.

    1. Atticus

      What do you mean by "utterly and thoroughly destroying the Confederacy"? Should they have just executed every southerner? You think that would have stopped racism because racism magically disappears when you go north of the Mason-Dixon line? Do you think America is unique in that it was racist in the past? Is there any country on Earth that did have racism engrained in its culture in some way? Racism itself isn't going to completely disappear. As long as there are races there will be racism.

      1. ScentOfViolets

        They should have put every leader of the Slaver rebellion to the sword. They should have revoked all representation at the federal level and made that blighted region into a protectorate. Anybody still swearing fealty to the Old South should have been publiclly flogged for the first offense, hanged for the second. Their children should have been brought up in a Northern-administered school system taught to be ashamed of their despicable slaver history and to loathe any family member who was a former slaver.

        If I've forgotten anything, I'll let you know later.

          1. ScentOfViolets

            If they had done that, there wouldn't be a traitorous party stoking racism and resentment built upon that racism.

            Besides which, doing so is just a general all around good idea. Traitors need to be punished until they've shown they've learned their lesson.

            I'm guessing you don't think traitors should be punished, which is yet another reason why you're my inferior. And not just intellectually.

            1. Atticus

              WTF is wrong with you? Do you talk to people like that in real life? You can't have a discussion with someone without saying things like they are your "inferior, and not just intellectually"? Seriously, what do you get out of personally attacking me in response to every single post I make?

              1. ScentOfViolets

                You have a long history of trolling and being disrespectful. Your stupid question being an example of the same; and don't tell me you don't know what your doing when you damn well do. If I had my druthers, you'd have long since been banned for your behaviour. Just so we know where we stand.

                And don't think I didn't notice that you deliberately did not respond to that bit about how to handle traitors 😉

              2. ScentOfViolets

                And not to put too fine a point on it, but at least one other person agrees with what I said. Think that possibly that may be a clue?

                1. ColBatGuano

                  Make that two people who agree with you. At a minimum Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens and Robert E. Lee should have been hanged. Any former general in the Confederate Army should have served a jail term and all large plantations should have been seized and divided up for the former slaves.

          2. Austin

            There would be no love for the confederacy today. Racism exists in most countries, but confederacy sympathizers only exist in large numbers in this country. This is because the former elite members of the confederacy weren't executed, their properties weren't seized and redistributed to their victims and their descendants were allowed to revere them (and ultimately rewrite history by erecting statues and whatnot honoring them).

      2. J. Frank Parnell

        You need to brush up on a bit of history, specifically the end of reconstruction, the election of 1877 which resulted in the withdrawal of federal troops from the south, and the consequent start of Jim Crow. The net result was the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments were not enforced and blacks in the south had no political representation. They effectively transitioned from slavery to economic servitude under the share cropping system.

        Would federal enforcement of the fourteen and fifteenth amendments have meant the immediate end of racism? No, but it would have sped things up by 75 years or so.

          1. J. Frank Parnell

            Candace Owens doesn't even know Reconstruction occured, although it doesn't stop here from having strong opinions about it.

      3. memyselfandi

        Somehow doubt that racism played a significant role in finnish culture. You actually need contact with a different race to have racism be important.

    2. Bardi

      The "ability" to categorize people by their appearance (racism) was likely considered survival behavior amongst cavemen. Sadly, many humans have yet to progress.

    3. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      This is how a Howell Heflin/Fritz Hollings/Zell Miller Democrat like KKKlay Travis can so easily glide into MAGA. (Ex-algore2000 campaign volunteer KKKlay's OutkukkThaLibz might be partly grift, but he's definitely mining territory he knows, at least somewhat.)

  5. tdbach

    I must be missing something here, because the answer seems so obvious to me. Who would think racism isn't a problem and never really was much of one? People who don't give a damn what happens to those *other* people, because those other people either had it coming to them, or they're exaggerating their suffering to get more from the government. More, more, more. In other words, these respondents are out and out racists

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Buy then they whine about their own victimization because of fentanyl.

      In J.D. ANTIVAXXX's America, only whites suffer.

  6. memfo

    I'm sure that the 29% would say racism does not even exist in the United States. It's just that the Black race is inferior to the White race.

  7. George Salt

    29% is pretty close to the Keyes constant, also known as the Crazification factor.

    It was first identified in the 2004 Senate election in Illinois, which pitted Alan Keyes against Barack Obama. Keyes got 27%.

  8. kahner

    "But what's the cause?"

    Seriously, Kevin? The reason 30 percent of Americans don't think racism was ever a problem is because they are unrepentant racists. They are fine with slavery ("those" people are lucky to be here), jim crow, the klan etc. They and their ancestors were the slave owners and klan members and today are the tiki torch carriers and insurrectionist trump lovers.

  9. ScentOfViolets

    The reason thirty percent of Americans don't think racism is/was a big deal is because they ain't black. Sorry to be so rough on 'em. But thems the facts.

    1. bobsomerby

      In the survey, 17% of black respondents said racism wasn't a major problem in the past.

      It was 32% of white respondents, 17% of blacks.

      1. ScentOfViolets

        Blink. That's ... surprising. When I have both the energy and time I'd like to dig down and disaggregate those numbers. In the meantime, that makes whites look worse, not better.

  10. middleoftheroaddem

    To claim that racism was never a problem in the US is clearly ridiculous. I WONDER if the response is getting 1) racism was not a problem in my life 2) or racism was not a problem within my lifetime.

    While the aforementioned are still inaccurate responses, those two ways to view the question MIGHT account for the survey....either way weird results!

  11. Gilgit

    Everyone is overlooking the excuse many racists give for their racism. They would say that they are only treating other races as they deserve (because of reasons). So to them it is not a “problem”.

  12. Jasper_in_Boston

    One sees poll results like this all the time: Americans who know otherwise deliberately giving factually incorrect answers to pollsters because it's the "answer" that owns the libs.

    Post-truth, in other words.

    (Relatedly, right-wingers who don't want to cooperate with deep-state, corrupt pollsters apparently now deliberately lie when asked about whom they're going to vote for. We saw this play out in both 2016 and 2020.)

    Polls are now shit, to the extent we're not yet able to properly figure in this kind of behavior.

    1. ScentOfViolets

      And on that note, don't get too excited at the 60% who think racism is currently a major problem: How many of those respondents think racism against whites is a 'major problem'?

  13. ConstanceReader

    "Is it mostly due to people wildly underestimating the effect of racism? Or is it due to an almost unbelievable ignorance of US history?"

    Neither. It's due to 29% of people believing that the existence an perpetuation of racism is entirely acceptable.

  14. Jimm

    It's absurd that 29% believe racism was never a problem, but one can imagine that most of those people are likely the leftover racists themselves (the rest beyond ignorant and clearly unable to distinguish between propagandas).

    It's not like the South integrated from its own free will, starting with Ike we basically made them do it by the tip of a gun.

  15. Yikes

    I don't know why this is at all surprising.

    Trump had a floor approval rating of 43%. Ok, so of the 43%, 29% don't think racism was that big a deal.

    That only leaves 14% for the other weird facts of the Trump coalition who have some other ax to grind, but so what?

    What's next? Shock that 20% think the Democratic party should be outlawed as communist traitors? Of course there are at least that many.

  16. J. Frank Parnell

    For nonempathetic white people, racism is not a problem, never has been, and never will be. That's one of the joys of white privilege.

    1. ScentOfViolets

      I hear this a lot, but after thinking about it for while, I'm not sure that's entirely true. After all, they've shown plenty of empathy if misfortune strikes close enough at home.

      What they lack is empathy _and_ imagination. Possibly due to a genetic defect that bestows upon them an extremely low amount of mirror neurons. Not that I'd ever imply that biology is destiny to those folks who most certainly think it is 😉

      1. J. Frank Parnell

        Among conservatives empathy is strictly reserved for those you know directly. Gay people are bad, except that your gay niece is all right. My spouse's grandfather was a devout Christian and an avid fan of Reagan. He continual complained of welfare and other "gubermint handouts", but every dead beat in the county had him on speed dial because he was such a soft touch when somebody needed money.

        1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

          That's how half my mom's family was beneficiaries of SSDI, SNAP, Medicaid, etc., but ended up voting for El Jefe in 2016.

        2. ScentOfViolets

          As I said, lack of imagination. Whereas I can be alternately sad, indignant, etc. about what happens to cartoon characters. When She Loved Me from the Toy Story franchise was a real tear-jerker, but I doubt many (adult) coservatives felt much of anything one way or another.

  17. pjcamp1905

    Huh. Pretty much exactly the size of Trump's base.

    It would be interesting to see time series data. I'm going to bet they've always been there, but the Internet has made their asshattery louder.

  18. memyselfandi

    I expect a lot of people are interpreting the question as was america's racist past causing problems today. And Some people would answer that no, it's that america is still racist that is causing the problem.

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