I Tell You, You Tell Me

CNN clutches its pearls and says -

Poll: Most Americans see lingering racism - in others

I bet no one says DUH! at finishing school.

(CNN) - Most Americans, white and black, see racism as a lingering problem in the United States, and many say they know people who are racist, according to a new poll. But few Americans of either race - about one out of eight - consider themselves racist. And experts say racism has evolved from the days of Jim Crow to the point that people may not even recognize it in themselves.

A poll conducted last week by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN indicates that whites and blacks disagree on how serious a problem racial bias is in the United States.

Oh, for Heaven's sake! Oppressors don't acknowledge oppressing. That would be rude!

Almost half of black respondents -- 49 percent -- said racism is a "very serious" problem, while 18 percent of whites shared that view. Forty-eight percent of whites and 35 percent of blacks chose the description "somewhat serious." (See the poll results) Asked if they know someone they consider racist, 43 percent of whites and 48 percent of blacks said yes. But just 13 percent of whites and 12 percent of blacks consider themselves racially biased.

The poll was based on phone interviews conducted December 5 through Thursday with 1,207 Americans, including 328 blacks and 703 non-Hispanic whites.

While it's undeniably naughty to tell others what to do, I feel you should go to CNN and look at the poll results - provided you're not already experiencing the vapors.

University of Connecticut professor Jack Dovidio, who has researched racism for more than 30 years, estimates up to 80 percent of white Americans have racist feelings they may not even recognize.

"We've reached a point that racism is like a virus that has mutated into a new form that we don't recognize," Dovidio said. He added that 21st-century racism is different from that of the past.

"Contemporary racism is not conscious, and it is not accompanied by dislike, so it gets expressed in indirect, subtle ways," he said. That "stealth" discrimination reveals itself in many different situations.

A three-year undercover investigation by the National Fair Housing Alliance found that real estate agents steered whites away from integrated neighborhoods and steered blacks toward predominantly black neighborhoods.

Don't look now, but your sleeve's fallen into my tea cup.

The Opinion Research poll shows that blacks and whites disagree on how each race feels about the other. Asked how many whites dislike blacks, 40 percent of black respondents said "all" or "many." Twenty-six percent of whites chose one of those replies. On the question of how many blacks dislike whites, 33 percent of blacks said "all" or "many," while 38 percent of whites agreed - not a significant difference statistically because of the poll's 5 percent margin of error.

About half of black respondents said they had been a victim of discrimination because of their race. A little more than a quarter of whites said they had been victims of racial discrimination.

Now, now, both ladies and gentlemen should be able to balance a full cup on their knees and avoid topics of conversation that place one on them. As this article hints in fits and starts, racism in America is alive and well, and we can politely talk about not talking about it. But can we talk about it?