With the rising of the protests stemming from George Floyd’s murder in 2020, race equality became a major talking point in recent years.
YouGov America performed a survey on 1,500 U.S. adults this month in which they gathered American’s feelings on statements regarding protest’s effects on racial progress.
When asked, “Do you feel that demonstrations and protests are necessary today in order to achieve racial equality?”, here’s how they responded:
- 36% of adult Americans say that protests are necessary to achieve racial equality
- 48% say protests don't make significant progress toward racial equality
- 16% say that protests don’t matter because we have already achieved racial equality
When broken down into political identity, the differences are fairly large.
- 64% of Democrats agree with protests as necessary in making progress to achieve racial equality
- 53% of Independents say that no, protests do not make much progress
- While the majority (63%) of Republicans say protests don’t move the needle on racial equality, only 13% of Republicans agree with protesting
- 25% of Republicans believe we have already achieved racial equality
- That number is just 6% for Democrats that say we achieved racial equality
With not much surprise, there is variance between races.
- The majority (58%) of Black Americans say that yes, protests are necessary to progress racial equality
- Only 29% of White Americans believe the same,
- 16% of White Americans say racial equality has been achieved, so protesting is not necessary
- Only 8% of Black Americans say the same
Younger Americans are the most likely to believe in protests.
- Almost half (48%) of adults 18-29 say that protests are necessary
- 43% of 30-44 year olds believe that no, protests are not needed to progress racial issues
- 51% of 45-64 year olds also say that protests are not necessary
- 59% of 65+ adults believe the same that protests do not need to occur in order to move forward on racial equality
Comments / 155