Americans Say Racism Exists, but Shrug at Solutions

By Liz Courquet-Lesaulnier, Word in Black

It’s the kind of polling data that gets a “water is wet” side-eye from Black folks. But the results of a recent Gallup poll reveal that when asked whether racism against Black people is “widespread,” nearly two-thirds of Americans now say yes.

Sixty-four percent, to be precise — the same record-high number Gallup recorded in 2021, in the summer of the so-called racial reckoning after George Floyd’s murder. But if Americans think racism is so pervasive, what do they want to do about it?

It turns out, not much.

The Vanishing Appetite for Civil Rights Laws

In our current whitelash reality of Project 2025 and anti-DEI crusades, when even acknowledging racial inequities has become a liability for grade schools and colleges, less than half of Americ