By Jesse Rhodes, Raymond La Raja, Tatishe Nteta, and Alexander Theodoridis, Photo: Carlos Carria/Reuters, The Washington Post, January 17, 2022
In his famous address at the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. drew a direct line between the struggle for racial equality and the nation’s efforts to realize democracy. “When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir,” King declared. However, King emphasized, the nation had betrayed that promise to Black people: “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.” King warned that this failure meant the nation’s promise that “all men are created equal” remained a “dream” that was yet to be realized.
Nearly 60 years later, the Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted continuing racial disparities in policing, education, employment, health care and voting rights, again underscoring the yawning gap between the nation’s democratic ideals and its lived reality. Even so, our research shows that Americans remain divided over whether racial inequality is a problem. Although a majority of Americans recognize that White people enjoy racial advantages and are angry about racism in U.S. society, a substantial fraction disagrees.
These disagreements animate the very real, and very perilous, struggle over the survival of U.S. democracy today. People who deny White racial advantages and the prevalence of racial inequities also doubt the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, express more positive attitudes toward the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and absolve former president Donald Trump of blame for the riot.
Comments (0)