Slightly over fifty percent of Americans have prejudiced attitudes towards African-Americans and Latinos, up about four percent since the 2008 election of Barack Obama. The findings are according to an Associated Press survey conducted with researchers from Stanford University, the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago.

Fifty-one percent hold “explicit black attitudes,” the data shows, and increases to 55 percent when “implicit” tests are employed such as using descriptive terms like “lazy,” “violent” or “hardworking.” Fifty-two percent of “non-white Hispanics” hold a similar prejudice against Latinos, and 57 percent on an implicit measure, according to 2011 data.

The anti-black sentiment has risen from 48 percent when Obama was first elected. The survey concludes that Obama will lose between two and five percent of the popular vote because of racial prejudice.

While Obama still leads in Ohio, he is losing five percent to Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode, four percent to Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and two percent to libertarian Gary Johnson. “These candidates can drain support from a key constituency for the president,” said John Zogby of Forbes.

The survey underscores the unsettling position of those on the white Left who oppose Obama, who are aligned with the white majority opposed to the president on racial grounds.

The data is damning for America’s reputation in a world where white people are a shrinking minority, and it goes largely unreported in the mainstream media. The results also expose the stark divide that continues between the prejudiced white majority based in the Confederacy, eastern California, Oregon and Washington, the Wild West, and white communities from the era of the Mexican War, most notably in Arizona. In the 2008 election, John McCain won the white vote by 55-43 percent. Recent polls show Mitt Romney’s voter base to be 91 percent white, while over 80 percent of people of color are voting for Obama. According to the Census Bureau in 2011 63.4 percent of Americans were “White persons not Hispanic.” 

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