Asian Americans, Latinos and African Americans have a deep mistrust of each other and engage in significant stereotyping, a poll found, but a majority of those surveyed said they should put aside differences.
The nationwide survey was sponsored by New America Media and was conducted partly in response to the fallout from AsianWeek's publishing of a column titled, "Why I hate blacks" by an Asian American writer.
Among the findings:
A majority of Hispanics and a significant percentage of Asians believe in the concept that every American has an equal opportunity to succeed. By contrast, the majority of Black respondents – 66 percent – disagreed with that notion.
Blacks overwhelmingly believe the criminal justice system favors the rich and powerful; most Hispanics and an even larger majority of Asians disagree.
A large majority of each group believes that they should put aside their differences and work together on issues affecting their communities; they also say the country would be better if more from all three groups were inpositions of authority at universities, businesses, media and government.
All three groups are optimistic about the future. Strong majorities of each group believe that racial tensions will ease over the next 10 years.
The result certainly show that American society is segregated in many ways. One nugget that was interesting was that most people surveyed have never dated outside their race. But Pollster Sergio Bendixen told the Miami Herald that a 2006 poll of California youth done for New America Media found that 65 percent had dated outside their race.
"Black and Latino and Asian meant nothing to them," Bendixen said. "They were much more likely to define themselves in terms of music and fashion. They're colorblind. We're moving in that direction, but very, very slowly."
So there's hope for the future.
Posted by harry at December 12, 2007 4:36 PM
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The title of your post is shamelessly misleading. It implies that the poll finds that minorities mistrust each other when really, at least from the samples you've provided here, it shows that minorities simply disagree on some social issues when it comes to life in American. Disagreement and mistrust are two very different things.
This just in:
Bears crap in the woods.
And why in God's name do idiots always use the topic of interracial dating as a tool to measure racial relations?
"I'm not racist! I date any Asian woman!"
In all my experiences, I've met more racist white men who date outside their race than racist white men with white women. God, minorities are still so damn stupid. I'm starting to realize that the reason why racial relations haven't gotten any better isn't only because whites are stupid but minorities are just as dumb.
Just because a person doesn't date outside their race doesn't make them racist. Just because a person dates outside their race doesn't make them not racist.