A poll by cnnpolitics.com reveals racial divides in reactions to the July arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates.
When Professor Gates was arrested at his home in Cambridge, Mass. for suspicion of breaking and entering, his arrest began a controversial national discussion on race that heated up after President Obama weighed in. After being asked a question about the incident at a press conference, Obama made the controversial comment that “the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.”
In the CNN poll, 54 percent of those questioned did not think that police officer James Crowley acted out of line. Thirty-three percent responded that his actions were questionable. Broken down by race, 59 percent of blacks thought Crowley was out of line, compared to only 29 percent of whites. Fifty-eight percent of whites felt Gates acted inappropriately, and intriguingly, African Americans split evenly agreeing 44-43 percent.
President Obama later backtracked on his “acted stupidly” comment saying, “I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think, I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley…I could have calibrated those words differently.”
Fifty-four percent of people polled thought Obama acted out of line when commenting on the arrest, and 32 percent disagreed. Twenty-six percent of blacks disagreed with Obama’s comments compared to 63 percent of whites. Obama has better numbers in his overall handling of race relations, 61 percent of those polled believed Obama handled the issue well, and 92 percent of blacks and 56 percent of whites endorsed the president’s efforts.
In response to whether or not Obama’s initial comments directed towards the Cambridge Police Department affected his political standing, CNN’s Polling Director Keating Holland said that the majority of whites felt the president’s initial comments did not affect their political views of him and they agreed with how he has handled race relations.
Accusations of racism are a frequent issue when dealing with police matters and in the poll a slight majority of Americans felt that racism by police officers is systemic. Forty-seven percent of whites thought it was common, but an overwhelming 86 percent of blacks felt that racism is rampant among those who protect and serve.
“That difference may be due to life experiences – more than half of blacks say that they have been treated unfairly by the police because of their race…a handful of whites report the same kind of treatment,” Holland said.
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