Buffalo, NY (WBEN) A new Siena poll finds 35 percent of New Yorkers think race relations in the state are excellent (five percent) or good (30 percent) – compared to 62 percent who say they are fair (43 percent) or poor (19 percent), down from last year’s Siena College poll, when 39 percent viewed race relations positively and 58 percent negatively. In 2013, a majority of New Yorkers, 54 percent, had a positive view of race relations in the state.
“As we approach the holiday to remember and honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., only 35 percent of white New Yorkers and 30 percent of black New Yorkers think race relations in the state are either excellent or good. That’s quite a change from just six years ago when 55 percent of whites and 46 percent of blacks thought race relations in the state were positive,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg. “Only 30 percent of Democrats think race relations are positive, compared to 42 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of independents.”
“More than two-thirds of New Yorkers continue to believe that racial and ethnic minorities in the state experience discrimination because of their race or ethnicity,” Greenberg said. “Eighty-three percent of blacks, 65 percent of Latinos and 64 percent of whites say that minorities face discrimination. The only demographic group that disagrees and thinks minorities do not experience discrimination is conservatives by a 49-43 percent margin.
“Three in ten New Yorkers – including nearly half of black New Yorkers and more than one-third of Latino New Yorkers say they have personally been treated unfairly in the last year because of their race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation,” Greenberg said. “That goes a long way to explaining why so many New Yorkers have a negative view about race relations in the state.”