Guess Who Wants Cops Around? Blacks

Gallup has a new poll out today with the headline “Black Americans Want Police to Retain Local Presence.” This headline understates the findings a bit, as the summary says “most [blacks] (81%) want police to spend same amount of or more time in their area.” (The actual numbers are 61% same; 20 percent more time.)

The Gallup report, part of its new initiative called the Gallup Center on Black Voices, goes out of its way to obscure the meaning of these findings, spending a lot of time dwelling on large gaps in the answers between white and black sentiments about policing. Only 19 percent of black respondents want less policing in their neighborhood, despite high rates of mistrust of the police, and only 22 percent of blacks say they favor abolishing the police.

This finding is also curious: “Asian Americans are the most likely to want less police presence where they live, with 28% saying this. That contrasts with 12% of White Americans, 17% of Hispanic Americans and 19% of Black Americans.” Asians reported negative attitudes toward police not far different from blacks, which casts doubt on a simple income hypothesis, since Asians are among the highest income groups in the country.

More evidence that the “Defund the Police” movement is mostly an enthusiasm of white progressives.

Bonus: You know what institution fares much much worse than police on their worst day? The media. Yesterday Gallup and the Knight Foundation published survey results showing that the public overwhelmingly thinks the news media is biased. Key takeaways:

  • A majority of Americans currently see “a great deal” (49%) or “a fair amount” (37%) of political bias in news coverage.
  • Americans perceive inaccurate news to be intentional — either because the reporter is misrepresenting the facts (54%) or making them up entirely (28%).

One other finding jumps out as solid evidence of liberal media bias:”three-fourths of Republicans (71%) have a “very” or “somewhat” unfavorable opinion of the news media, compared to 22% of Democrats.” The converse question finds the same: 54% of Democrats have a very favorable view of the media, and only 13% of Republicans feel the same way.

If the media were truly objective and unbiased, you wouldn’t see this dramatic a partisan split. What does it tell you when Democrats are mostly satisfied with the news media? I tells us that Glenn Reynolds is right in calling journalists “Democratic activists with bylines.” Democrats recognize their friends and allies when they see them.

How about we start a “Defund the Media” movement? Actually, that’s already happened because of the internet, etc.

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