Far fewer Americans see racism as a major problem in the US compared with 13 years ago, a poll released on Monday on the eve of the inauguration of the nation’s first black American president.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that just over one in four Americans still saw racism as a “big problem” today, less than half of the 54 percent who said so in mid-1996, and that a majority of respondents believed race relations would improve during Barack Obama’s administration.
The survey showed broad disparities between how blacks and whites see the issue, however. It said just 22 percent of whites continued to see racism as a societal problem, compared with 44 percent of blacks. In 1970 those figures stood at 52 percent for whites and 70 percent for blacks.
Just over half of blacks said black Americans had achieved or would soon achieve racial equality in the US, while 75 percent of whites said African-Americans had achieved racial equality.
The poll, conducted by telephone from Jan. 13 to Jan. 16 among 1,079 adults, said just as many people today see racial bias in their local communities as did back in 2003, before Obama — the son of a black Kenyan father and a white American mother — hit the national stage.
Forty-seven percent of Americans — two thirds of blacks and 43 percent of whites — said they believed blacks experienced racial discrimination in their communities. The poll was released days after the Washington Post interviewed Obama, who said his election reflected the country’s improving views on race and that Americans should “focus on what we have in common.”
A new CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll said nearly seven in 10 black Americans believed that with the election of Obama, slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s dream of racial equality had been fulfilled.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
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From post offices and parks to stations and even the summit of Mount Fuji, Japan’s vending machines are ubiquitous, but with the rapid pace of inflation cooling demand for their drinks, operators are being forced to rethink the business. Last month beverage giant DyDo Group Holdings announced it would remove about 20,000 vending machines — about 7 percent of their stock nationwide — by January next year, to “reconstruct a profitable network.” Pokka Sapporo Food & Beverage, based in Nagoya, also said last month it would sell its 40,000-machine operation to Osaka-based Lifedrink Co. “The strength of the vending machine
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