A majority of Americans believe relations between white and black communities have gotten worse since President Obama first took office in 2009, according to a new Bloomberg Politics poll.
While 53 percent of Americans said race relations have worsened under the country's first black president, 36 percent claimed that race relations had stayed the same. The poll, released on Sunday, had a racial split of 56 percent white respondents and 45 percent black respondents.
Only a mere nine percent of respondents believed race relations have gotten better after Obama was elected, including just 3 percent who said they had gotten a lot better.
Specifically, the poll showed deep racial divides on recent decisions by grand juries in St. Louis County, Mo., and New York City declining to indict police officers in the deaths of unarmed black men, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
On Nov. 24, the Ferguson grand jury decided not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the Aug. 9 fatal shooting of 18-year-old unarmed Michael Brown, sparking weeks of riots and protests. Fifty-two percent of respondents agreed with the decision of not charging the 28-year-old Missouri police officer.
About 25 percent of white respondents agreed with the controversial decision, but 89 percent of black respondents disagreed.
In contrast, the decision by a New York grand jury not to charge a police officer in the July 17 choking death of Eric Garner drew less racial disparities, with 52 percent of white respondents and 90 percent of black respondents disagreeing, according to the Washington Examiner.
Sixty percent of respondents disagreed with the grand jury decision against indicting New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo, who killed Garner in a chokehold. However, many conservatives and libertarians view Garner's death, which was captured on videotape, as a more clear example of excessive police force.
The poll of 1,001 U.S. adults was conducted Dec. 3-5 by Selzer & Company of Des Moines, Iowa, and the poll for the full sample has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
