Discrimination & Prejudice

A recent Pew Research Center survey asked Americans of all races how black people are treated relative to whites by the police, the court system and other institutions in their community. The results show a large and consistent black-white gap in perceptions, with blacks far more likely than whites to say African Americans are treated […]

Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech 50 years ago today on Washington D.C.’s National Mall and Memorial Parks has become one of the most famous, and quoted, pieces of oratory in U.S. history (though that wasn’t apparent to everyone at the time). But how well have the aspirations King so memorably expressed been realized? We ran […]

Five decades after Martin Luther King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C., a new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that fewer than half (45%) of all Americans say the country has made substantial progress toward racial equality and about the same share (49%) say that “a lot more” remains to be done.

In a new study, researchers found nearly a three-fold increase in the share of integrated New York City neighborhoods with a mix of whites, Hispanics and Asians but few, if any, blacks.

A study finds that female white-collar crooks face the same glass ceiling as their law-abiding peers in the corporate world: they typically hold inferior positions to men, rarely are in charge and make significantly less money for their dirty deeds than their male accomplices.

This posting is an excerpt from a FactTank article about unmarried fatherhood, and which fathers are more likely to acknowledge paternity when asked. Unmarried fathers of sons are slightly more likely to acknowledge paternity than fathers of daughters.

Overview The public is divided over the not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial and over the conversation about race that has surrounded it. The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted July 17-21 among 1,480 adults nationwide finds roughly as many satisfied with the verdict in the case (39%) as dissatisfied […]

Last week, San Francisco Bay area television station KTVU broadcast fake names for the pilots of the Asiana Airline flight that crashed on July 6. The error involved ethnic stereotyping, leading the Asian American Journalists Association to assert that these kinds of mistakes “underscored the importance of newsroom diversity” at America’s media outlets. A similar […]

Overview The final days of the trial of George Zimmerman, which concluded July 13 with a verdict of not guilty, attracted relatively modest public interest overall. In a weekend survey, 26% say they were following news about the trial very closely. This is lower than interest in the initial controversy over Trayvon Martin’s shooting when […]

America’s struggles with race and racism are never completely out of the news. But it is hard to remember when a series of stories have given this issue such resonance, whether in the rulings of the Supreme Court on affirmative action and voting rights, a tense trial in a Florida courtroom and even the racially insensitive comments of a celebrity chef.