Fewer African Americans say blacks and whites get along well today than felt that way in 2009, according to a new Pew Research Center/USA Today poll. From 2007 to 2009, the number of black respondents who said blacks and whites get along “very well” or “pretty well” increased seven percentage points, to 76 percent. But since 2009, the share of black respondents who had a positive view of race relations has dropped twelve points, to 64 percent. Similarly, white respondents who thought blacks and whites got along well increased three percentage points from 2007 to 2009, but decreased five percentage points from 2009 to 2014.


The poll also found that 70 percent of black respondents thought police did a poor job of treating racial and ethnic groups equally, while just 25 percent of whites say they do a bad job. Democrats were more critical of police performance than Republicans, and but Pew found that much of the discrepancy could be attributed to the views of African-American Democrats.