Report Card On Prejudice In America

John Zogby presented a fascinating poll last year that had a new take on this issue.

Rather than just asking people what *they* personally believed about various forms of prejudice(racism, etc.), these people were also asked what they believed their *neighbor* thought about these issues.

The results are very telling and suggest (to me) that our country is (sadly) not nearly as progressive in some ways as we like to believe we are.

After all, of course when you ask people direct questions they'll often try to mask their prejudices (generally speaking). IMO, you have to average their personal responses with the 'what does your neighbor think' responses to get a more accurate measure of prejudice.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-zogby/report-card-on-prejudice-_b_57558.html

The psychology seems sound, so this is an interesting take that jives with my own experiences.

I'd like to see more polls conducted this way on a variety of issues.

" The poll turned up relatively few instances of Americans believing their neighbors have negative views toward Jews." And yet, according to the 2006 FBI Hate Crimes statistics, Jews make up over 60% of victims of hate crimes in the religion category and 13% of all victims of hate crimes. A recent ADL survey showed more than 10% of those polled holding extremely anti-Semitic views, with even more falling along the border.