Americans' views of black-white relations worsen

Americans see black-white relations in a more negative way today than they have at any time in the past 15 years, according to a new Gallup poll.

Currently, the new poll found that only 47 percent of the people surveyed regard relations between blacks and whites as at least "somewhat good," declining steeply from 70 percent in 2013.

Meanwhile, whites' positive perception of black-white relations has dropped by 27 percent since 2013, from 72 percent to 45 percent, while blacks' positive perception in this regard has showed a smaller but noticeable decline of 15 percent, from 66 percent to 51 percent.

The results were based on Gallup's Minority Rights and Relations poll, which interviewed more than 2,000 Americans, including more than 800 non-Hispanic whites. The poll was done from June 15 through July 10.

According to Gallup, though Americans' perceptions of black- white relations have become increasingly more negative, their perception of relations among other racial and ethnic groups have been unchanged since 2013.

As a result, the poll said that Americans are now the most negative in their evaluations of black-white relations since Gallup began tracking this measure. In 2013, they were the least positive about black-Hispanic relations. Historically, Americans have believed white-Asian relations to be the most positive.

The results of the survey came unsurprisingly as multiple polls and surveys had indicated that an increasing number of Americans now perceive race relations as the most important problem in the country after a series of deadly encounters between white police officers and unarmed black men made headlines in the past 12 months.