“The new findings … lay bare the dramatic and growing gap in racial attitudes and experiences in America,” writes David Briggs in releasing the second wave of results from the Portraits of American Life Study (led by Michael Emerson of Rice University and David Sikkink of Notre Dame) via the Association of Religion Data Archives. “We do not live in a post-racial nation, the [new 2012 results] suggests, but in a land of two Americas divided by race, and less willing than ever to find a common ground of understanding.”…
1) More evangelicals and Catholics have come to believe that “one of the most effective ways to improve race relations is to stop talking about race.” In 2012, 64 percent of evangelicals and 59 percent of Catholics agreed with this statement, up from 48 percent and 44 percent respectively in 2006…
2) More evangelicals now agree that “it is okay for the races to be separate, as long as they have equal opportunity.” In 2012, 30 percent of all evangelicals agreed, up from 19 percent who said the same in 2006…
In 2006, more than 4 in 10 white non-evangelical Protestants agreed that the government should do more, versus only 3 in 10 white evangelicals and white Catholics. But in 2012, researchers found that “the religion effect disappeared” thanks to “substantial declining support” among white mainline Protestants (dropping from 42 percent to 21 percent) and white “other” Protestants (42 percent to 20 percent). Thus, “regardless of religious affiliation, whites were statistically identical to each other” by 2012.
5) More Americans now say they have been “treated unfairly” because of their race. And moreover, the increase from 2006 to 2012 was statistically significant for all groups: blacks (36% to 46%); Hispanics (17% to 36%); Asians (16% to 31%); whites (8% to 14%); as well as all Americans (13% to 21%).
Looks like more evidence for continuing to assign Divided By Faith to my Introduction to Sociology classes…
Legally Sociable 