Black-white racial divide is worse, researchers say

Nearly 60 years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a “separate but equal” doctrine that reinforced segregation, almost a quarter of Americans say it is OK for races to be separate as long as they have equal opportunities.

Half a century after Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of carving out “a stone of hope” from the mountain of despair in race relations, black Americans are five times as likely as white Americans to think about their race every day and more than three times as likely to report being treated unfairly because of the color of their skin.

As the world commemorates the passing of Nelson Mandela, a man who forced his country to confront apartheid and led South Africa through a peaceful transition to a multiracial democracy, more than half of Americans, including six in ten whites, say one of the best ways to improve race relations is to stop talking about race.