DETROIT, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- More Michigan African-Americans say they're discouraged about race relations ever improving in the United States, a poll indicates.
A phone survey of 650 people across the state by the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion and published Monday in The Detroit News found 68 percent of African-American respondents saying it would take 100 years, or never, before racial equality is achieved, compared with 63 percent who said so in 2008.
The roundtable survey, which measured Michiganians' responses to issues of race, gender, sexual preference and discrimination, revealed increased pessimism about race relations as the nation commemorated Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- even after the historic election of the country's first black president.
Part of the reason for the setback, said Tom Costello, president and CEO of the Michigan Roundtable, may be "the incessant and sometimes racially tinged attacks on President (Barack) Obama" that could be acting as a catalyst discouraging both African-Americans and some whites about progress in race relations.
The newspaper did not report the survey's methodology.
