It sure is a good thing we're past all that messy race stuff

It sure is a good thing we're past all that messy race stuff

by digby

This is depressing but not unexpected when you consider what we've found out about the political and law enforcement system in the area:

A new public opinion survey of St. Louis County residents shows the public perception of the death 18-year-old Michael Brown and its aftermath is sharply divided along racial lines.

The survey, released Monday morning by the Kansas City-based Remington Research Group, found that 65 percent of African-American county residents believe that Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson acted unjustly when he ended Brown's life Aug. 9 on a Ferguson street.

Conversely, 62 percent of the white residents surveyed by Remington believe the shooting death of Brown was justified.

The fissure broke even wider when surveyors asked if Wilson should be "arrested and charged with a crime" with 71 percent of African American residents responding "yes" opposed to the 71 percent of white survey-takers who believe the police officer should not be held liable.

This is, naturally, a result that proves African Americans are reverse racists.

It's disillusioning to see this since the media has been all over this story and has exposed a lot of the systemic racial biases in the county. I can see how decent people in their everyday lives might not have been aware of it before. But they should be now.

But then it's probable that the numbers were even more starkly divided before ...

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