News
Survey: Race Shapes View of Suburbs
Groups in poll differ on police fairness, strength of economy
11.22.2007
By Leah Rae
Black residents of the suburbs see a vastly different reality than others as they encounter schools, police, the courts and even salespeople, according to a Manhattanville College poll.
A telephone survey this month detailed the level of racial and ethnic discrimination perceived by black, white and Hispanic residents in the counties north of New York City. Among the findings:
- Almost 60 percent of blacks and 50 percent of Hispanics say they experience discrimination, compared with 30 percent of whites. They experience it at work, at school, in the criminal justice system - even while shopping.
- Black residents overwhelmingly believe they are treated less fairly by police and the courts, though such perceptions have improved slightly since a similar 1999 poll. More than 70 percent of blacks still said their group is treated less fairly by police than others.
- Asked open-endedly to name the most important issue facing the county where they live, all three groups named taxes above all else. The second-biggest issue for Hispanics was education; for blacks, it was affordable housing, closely followed by crime. For whites, overdevelopment was a distant second.
- The local economy is perceived very differently depending on race: 57 percent of whites rated their county's economy as excellent or good, but only 32 percent of blacks rated the economy that well. Among Hispanics, about half saw the economy as good or better.
The poll was conducted Nov. 6-14 in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. Five hundred people were interviewed in English or Spanish through random dialing, and an additional 160 interviews were held with black and Hispanic residents.
Researcher Drew Zambelli conducted the survey as a follow-up to a similar 1999 poll sponsored by Manhattanville and The Journal News. The new one breaks out the responses from Hispanic residents, and it includes Rockland and Putnam as well as Westchester.
"The criminal justice system and police still stand out in areas of at least perceived unfairness," college President Richard Berman said.
The responses also placed a surprising emphasis on one particular realm of suburban life, one that's especially relevant at this time of year: shopping. Little public attention has been paid to that issue, he said.
"We've heard a lot about police," Berman said, referring to public discussions about brutality claims and racial profiling. "But have we heard anything about shopping?"
The college in Purchase has conducted the research to help identify problems in the wider community and work toward solutions, he said.
Regarding bias in the courts and law enforcement, respondents most often are talking about the experiences of other people, not themselves, noted Zambelli, a pollster and market researcher who lives in Eastchester. The overall picture has improved, but the level of distrust against police and the courts is striking, he said.
Black respondents did show a more favorable view than in 1999 of their ability to buy a home without regard to their race.
Hispanics were the most optimistic about whether race relations have improved in the past five years, at least on the local level. Blacks and whites were more likely to say that race relations have grown worse.
The numbers found that whites had an increasing awareness of racial discrimination, Berman said. They were more likely than in the last poll to perceive bias against minority groups, particularly in the area of housing. The survey also looked at how blacks and Hispanics view the way that each other's group is treated. Hispanic residents, for example, believed that blacks suffered more discrimination in hiring and in home buying than they themselves did.
Black respondents also perceived a great deal of bias against Hispanics. In law enforcement, they were more negative about how Hispanics were treated than the Hispanic respondents themselves.
Racial and ethnic groups also differed on their outlook for the nation. Only one-quarter of respondents said the United States was on the "right track," though black respondents were much less optimistic and Hispanics more optimistic than other groups. But all three groups felt better about their own county than about the nation, with about half saying things were going in the right direction.