--- title: Race Relations at Their Worst Point in Years, Americans Say description: A New York Times/CBS poll found Americans believe race relations are getting worse canonical: https://time.com/4405568/race-relations-poll-alton-sterling-philando-castile-dallas/ author: Julia Zorthian article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-14T00:53:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:14:29.939Z article:section: Politics og:title: Americans Think Race Relations Are at Their Worst Point in Years, Poll Finds og:description: Levels of racial discontent in America are high, and growing higher og:url: https://time.com/4405568/race-relations-poll-alton-sterling-philando-castile-dallas/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Americans Think Race Relations Are at Their Worst Point in Years, Poll Finds twitter:description: Levels of racial discontent in America are high, and growing higher twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Americans Think Race Relations Are at Their Worst Point in Years, Poll Finds  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Jul 14, 2016 12:53 AM UTC  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Jul 14, 2016 12:53 AM UTC Americans believe that [racial discontent is at the highest point](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/us/most-americans-hold-grim-view-of-race-relations-poll-finds.html) since the Obama presidency began, with 69 percent of respondents in a new poll saying race relations in the country right now are poor. The New York _Times_ and CBS conducted the poll from Friday through Tuesday, the period directly after the killings of [Alton Sterling](http://time.com/4395459/alton-sterling-baton-rouge-police-shooting/), [Philando Castile](http://time.com/4396256/minnesota-shooting-philando-castile-what-know/) and [five police officers](http://time.com/4397785/dallas-shooting-police-protest-snipers/) in Dallas. The poll also found that 6 out of 10 respondents thought race relations in America are getting worse — a marked increase from 38 percent who said the same [a year ago](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/24/us/poll-shows-most-americans-think-race-relations-are-bad.html), the _Times_ reports. The poll surveyed 1,600 people throughout the United States. The racial strife found in the poll matches the levels recorded during the [riots in Los Angeles](http://time.com/4245175/rodney-king-la-riots-anniversary/) in 1992 over [the Rodney King beating case](http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1614117%5F1614084%5F1614831,00.html). Additionally, more than half of black respondents said they weren’t even surprised by the Dallas attack last week, while just under half of white respondents said the same. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4405568/race-relations-poll-alton-sterling-philando-castile-dallas/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4405568/race-relations-poll-alton-sterling-philando-castile-dallas/"},"headline":"Americans Think Race Relations Are at Their Worst Point in Years, Poll Finds","datePublished":"2016-07-14T00:53:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:14:29.939Z","description":"Levels of racial discontent in America are high, and growing higher, a new poll finds","url":"https://time.com/4405568/race-relations-poll-alton-sterling-philando-castile-dallas/","keywords":["Race","Barack Obama","politics"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Julia Zorthian","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/race/","name":"Race"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4405568/race-relations-poll-alton-sterling-philando-castile-dallas/","name":"Americans Think Race Relations Are at Their Worst Point in Years, Poll Finds"}}]}] ```