Bloomberg Politics "President Barack Obama had hoped his historic election would ease race relations, yet a majority of Americans, 53 percent, say the interactions between the white and black communities have deteriorated since he took office, according to a new Bloomberg Politics poll. Those divisions are laid bare in the split reactions to the decisions by two grand juries not to indict white police officers who killed unarmed black men in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y.
"Both times, protesters responded with outrage and politicians called for federal investigations. Yet Americans don’t think of the cases as a matched set of injustices, the poll found. A majority agreed with the Ferguson decision, while most objected to the conclusion in the Staten Island death, which was captured on video...
"Obama has also weighed in on the deaths of both Brown and Garner. And the Justice Department is reviewing the two incidents, as well. Yet Obama has not gone to Missouri or New York. ... “He should have gone to Ferguson and very bluntly said, ‘I don’t want any violence here. Let’s show people that we can accept verdicts we don’t like,’” he said. “The destruction just makes people more prejudice[d] than they already are.”
