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Post is kinda dying now but whatever lol
I've been trying to follow the polling on reparations for a while and these are some I've come across, 2002-2020 (if anyone knows of more conducted during the GWB years or BO's first term pls feel free to correct me/add on):
1)https://news.gallup.com/poll/261722/redress-slavery-americans-oppose-cash-reparations.aspx February 8-10, 2002; n=1001
2) https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2014/06/02/reparations May 27-28, 2014; n=1000
3)http://files.kff.org/attachment/report-survey-of-americans-on-race August 25- October 3, 2015; n=1951
4)http://maristpoll.marist.edu/510-reparations-for-slavery-in-the-united-states/ April 27-28 & May 2-4, 2016; n=1221
5)https://news.gallup.com/poll/261722/redress-slavery-americans-oppose-cash-reparations.aspx June 19-July 12, 2019; n=2543
6)https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/topline_10_22_final.pdf September 20-23, 2019; n=1286
7)https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/vice-brown-black-forum January 8-10, 2020; n=2013
8)https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/abc-coronavirus-poll-wave-13 June 17-18, 2020; n=727
9)https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/npr-racial-inequality-issues August 20-21, 2020; n=1186
I'm a nerd and care almost too much about this issue so I'll pull key percentages from each of these polls below for convenience (and pls pardon any mistakes bc I'm rushing lol). But looking at the reparations polling *over time*:
-yes, support for reparations is still low across full samples reflecting the general US population but it's DOUBLED since the early 2000s, and increased by 10% over the last half-decade alone
-there was MAJORITY BLACK SUPPORT for a reparations program as far back as the early 2000s (55%, according to Gallup) and it's approaching NEAR UNANIMOUS Black support as of 2020 (with one 2020 sample polling as high as 80% Black respondents in favor)
-Latin American support for reparations basically TRIPLED over the last half-decade, and the samples are likely to be split roughly half-and-half in the coming years (my guess is across party lines, but age could be mediating a lot too)
-yes, White American support for reparations is the lowest among all groups (like 20% as of 2020), but that support also TRIPLED from as low as 6% in the early 2000s
Full Samples/All Americans
1)2002 - 14% 2)2014 - 15% 3)2015 - 18% 4)2016 - 32% 5)2019 - 29% 6)2019 - 29% 7)2020 - 30% 8)2020 - 27% 9)2020 - N/A
Black Americans
1)2002 - 55% 2)2014 - 58% 3)2015 - 52% 4)2016 - 65% 5)2019 - 73% 6)2019 - 74% 7)2020 - 62% 8)2020 - 72% 9)2020 - 80%
Latin Americans
1)2002 - N/A 2)2014 - 14% 3)2015 - 37% 4)2016 - 53% 5)2019 - 47% 6)2019 - 44% 7)2020 - 41% 8)2020 - N/A 9)2020 - N/A
White Americans
1)2002 - 6% 2)2014 - 9% 3)2015 - 8% 4)2016 - 19% 5)2019 - 16% 6)2019 - 15% 7)2020 - 20% 8)2020 - 14% 9)2020 - 21%
^I honestly interpret all this polling as more indicative of a slow burn, rather than cause for surrender. Everyone is trending up. Additionally, in one of the polls (from 2014 https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2014/06/02/reparations) **31%** of the sample WOULDN'T EVEN HAVE SUPPORTED REPARATIONS TO THE ACTUAL PEOPLE who were enslaved (!!), talk more of descendants. So, essentially, there's a not-small segment of US adults walking around with a straight up ANTEBELLUM MENTALITY (the confederate flags kinda give some of them away tho). Now imagine if, since America's civil war era, deference to these wackos (as is being recommended by Obama and a few others in this post lol) had prevailed??? There'd have been no Civil Rights Acts, from 1866 to 1968. In fact A WHOLE OTHER GROUP, Japanese-Americans, successfully fought for reparations over a decade after being *inspired by* Black Americans' civil rights movement (https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/03/24/820181127/the-unlikely-story-behind-japanese-americans-campaign-for-reparations)! And yet there's *still* this concern about racists' disapproval?? This same racist disapproval hass been there for how many hundreds of years and will probably persist for more.
I donno. Maybe at some point the play will be to just Stacey Abrams the shit and work around the racists, naysayers be damned. I hope so. I also wish the talking points on this issue were more constructive... Like how there might be enough woke White and Latin American people onboard now to piece together a decent-sized coalition now, lol. I'd love to hear a former pres weigh in on creative ways a reparations program could even be funded too. Oh well tho.
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