The data is interesting but ultimately not surprising. Much of the public reaction following the death of George Floyd and the subsequent riots overwhelmingly favored BLM, but media obfuscation and the conformist tendencies of human nature played a significant role in that.
Now that the dust has long settled and the trial of Derek Chauvin is about to begin, the USA Today poll has revealed that blacks and whites have diametric views on Chauvin’s actions and broader racial issues.
60 percent of Americans last June described George Floyd’s death as murder—that figure has since plummeted to 36 percent. Corresponding to that is a fourfold increase in the number of people who say they don’t know how to describe the video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd. Roughly the same number of people as last year think that Chauvin was negligent, while there’s been a notable uptick in the number of people who think he did nothing wrong. Read more…