is in philadelphia this evening to discuss the state of american democracy. the white house says the president's speech will focus on what they are calling the battle for the soul of the nation. this comes two months ahead of the midterm elections. live coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. also on our free mobile video app, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. announcer: the head of president biden's speech on the state of american democracy, house minority leader kevin mccarthy will be speaking in pennsylvania about the democratic party's agenda. watch live at 5:45 p.m. eastern on c-span now, are free mobile video app. then live this evening, a virtual back-to-school town hall including a discussion about covid-19, gun violence, and teacher shortages with the

education secretary and the cdc director. are coverage begins this evening at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span now. journal" continues. host: showing us is kiana cox, research associate with the pew research center here to talk about a new survey about black opinions on race in u.s. society. why do this survey and how did you go about doing it? guest: one of the things that was really important to us as we looked at black americans and their attitudes about inequality in the united states was to look at black politics beyond voting behavior. we thought were there were -- there were evergreen conversations black americans have had for generations in terms of being able to understand their position in the country, how they experience inequality, and what pathways to equality look like.

we wanted to provide a round her perspective on what black politics look like aside from how black americans vote. host: how did you go about conducting the survey? guest: we did an online poll of nearly 4000 black americans. at pew research center we recruit black males into our american panel and we have all of the black participants, we invite all the black participants on our panel and additional panels to take our survey on the internet and fill out those questions for us. host: i want to show some of the results from the survey. after george floyd's murder have a black americans expected policy changes to address racial inequalities. this is the percentage of black adults who say increased attention to issues of race and racial any polity will lead to major policy changes. 50% said yes to that.

56% said it would lead to changes that would improve black lives. what did you find by 2021? guest: a year later, after that: 2020, in 2021 we found that almost 70% of black americans said the increased attention to racial inequality as a result of george floyd's murder had not yet yielded changes that improve their lives. as you mentioned, there was some optimism in terms of hoping that attention would bring about some differences that they could cn feel. a year later our responses said those differences have not occurred yet. host: 44% -- equality for black people is little or not at all likely. guest: right. in addition to asking them about the increased attention to racial inequality, we wanted to get a read on how black

americans feel about their position in society and we asked them, do you feel like black americans whatever achieve equality, and 44% or almost half said equality is not likely. one thing we found throughout the survey was that kind of pessimism is pretty widespread in terms of multiple questions we asked, not just about black americans position in society but about various institutional changes and pathways to equality. no more than 20% of black americans said they thought any u.s. institution would change in terms of the criminal justice system, the political system, the health care system and others we asked about. no more than 20% of black americans thought any of those institutions would change in order to treat black people more fairly. host: and they view these as roadblocks? guest: they view these institutions as one's that need

either made -- either major changes or complete overhauls in terms of being able to get rid of racial discrimination. these numbers represent a critique of these institutions and how black americans feel they are being treated within them. host: i just want to show the viewers the results of what you were just talking about. black american views on reducing racial inequality. many black adults say institutional overhauls are necessity -- are necessary to ensure fair treatment. here is a percentage of black adults say each of the following needs to be completely rebuilt. 54% said the prison system. 49% pointed to policing. the courts and the judicial process, 48% of them pointed to that. the political system, 42% said the political system needs to be changed. 37% said the economic system and 34% said the health care system.

talk about these numbers. guest: in terms of assessing these institutional changes, we asked black adult how much these institutions need to change? no changes, minor changes, major changes, organ they require complete overhauls or to be completely rebuilt? we broke those numbers out and we are reporting primarily on the completely rebuilt numbers. the broader picture is those numbers tellabs is nearly 90% of black americans set each of those systems need major changes or to be completely rebuilt. sure, we are paying attention to the completely rebuilt number, but it is important to recognize that a vast majority of black americans would like to see significant shifts in all of these institutions so they can be treated more fairly. host: i want to share this as well for our viewers.

the percentage of black adults who say funding for police departments in their community should be increased -- 35% said increased. 39% shed -- said should stay the same. only 29% said it should be decreased. this debate over defunding the police and what does that mean. guest: right. one of the things we sought that is really important to understand about our findings on policing is black americans views about policing are complex. on the one hand we see 60% of black americans say police brutality is an extremely big problem for black people in the country today. we asked these questions a year after george floyd's murder and several months after derek chauvin was convicted. even in that timeframe 60% of black americans said police brutality was still a big problem. they also said, about half of

laugh -- about half of black adults said various aspects of the criminal justice system need complete overhauls. on the one hand there is still a critique of policing as an institution, but on the other hand there is also not necessarily a push based on our data come in terms of the percentage of black adults would like to see funding decrease. the majority of black adults want to see funding stay the same or to increase. there are some nuance in terms of how black americans you policing. a critique, but not necessarily a removal of funding on the other. host: even those who said funding should be decreased, this is what they said money should be used for. 40% said it should be part medical, mental health, and social services. 25% for k-12 schools, and others for roads and water systems and infrastructure. guest: even among the 23% who

wanted to see decreases, it is those social services, those mental health services, that was the top priority for that group of people, those who are in support of defunding, they would like that money redirected to those community services. host: let's get to calls on your survey. anna in texas, democratic caller . good morning. caller: good morning. ms. cox, one of the first things i will say, martin luther king's lawyer wrote a book on what martin would say, the first thing was about policing. he said defund the police, martin would say are you crazy. our neighborhoods need policing more than anyone. the other one is voting. the next one becomes food deserts. we have politicians who look

like me and you and some of these areas, they do not go, we just reelect the same people over and over again and do nothing for us. we do not attend school board meetings, we do not attend city council meetings, we do not vote for crucial people, like in texas, people just do not vote. it is pathetic that they complain and complain and complain. they complain about the governor, but when it comes time to vote they do not go vote. that is a problem for me. i am 74 years old. i was taught to vote. and we vote. our kids -- it is not important. it is important when it comes to your state representatives. when you go out to vote, you vote for everybody, attorney general, governor, lieutenant

governor. we do not teach that anymore. it was taught when i was in a segregated school. we have all of the schools and nobody wants to teach or say. another thing. we need a national curfew. it is 2:00 in the morning. do know where your children are? thank you very much and i appreciate it. host: kiana cox? guest: i think the caller's frustration shows up in our data in a couple of ways. in terms of approaches to equality, we found in our data that the majority of black americans said voting is an extremely or very effective pathway towards equality for black americans and that also efforts to limit voting is an extremely big problem for black americans in the country. also she mentioned her age and that was the number one of the significant findings we found.

black adults, particularly those older than 65 or more likely than those who are on birth -- than those who are under 30 to say voting is an extremely or very important pathway to equality for black americans. younger black adults were more likely to champion approaches such as establishing a national black political party, and some of these other approaches that are more about community and black americans self-determination. our data reflects a lot of the different points your caller made. host: let's hear from joe in scranton, pennsylvania. independent. caller: hello. i am speaking from a point of view -- i am 60 years old. what i have seen is a reduction in the formal christianity of a

lot of families. i believe a lot of that has to do with the reduction of the nuclear family structure. as i'm sure you are well aware, the amount of african-american children who are lacking having that father figure in their family. is there any part of the studies or anything that are identifying that in coming up with some resolutions and some training or teaching to bring back that responsibility of being a father? guest: in this particular survey we do not cover those topics, but about 18 months ago we published a survey that was on african-americans and their religious traditions if you would like to take a look at that survey.

you can visit pe wresearch.org. some of the things we found in terms of that survey that do overlap with what we are looking at here is that black americans by and large are more likely than the general public to say antiracism is an essential part of their faith and morality. black adults in that survey also mentioned it was important for black youth to see black men and women be role models for them in their religious communities. black adults were also very likely to say they thought the roles mothers and fathers played in their families in terms of income and supporting the family, but also in terms of household duties around the home were also important. we do not touch on those gender or religious issues in this report, but other reports we have done in previous years certainly do talk about those

issues. host: james in louisiana. independent. caller: thanks for taking my call. ms. cox, out of all the questions on your survey did you ask the black people what they could be doing for themselves to alleviate the problems we are suffering? we are appealing to a system that created the problem. my last point. go to any chinatown in america, you do not see any policeman stopping and frisking, shooting and murdering. they have their own policeman in chinatown. thank you. guest: our survey did not necessarily ask black adults about what they individually could do, but certainly we asked lack adults to weigh in on the pathways to advancement they think would work. on the one hand nearly 70% of black americans said

discrimination is the main reason black people cannot get ahead, but around 30% of black adults set of black people cannot get ahead they are responsible for their own condition. on the one hand nearly 60% of black adults said working hard is no guarantee of success, but about 40% said if you do work hard you can get ahead. while we did ask individual black adults about their particular pathways, certainly there is a sizable minority of black adults who think in terms of self responsibility and pulling your own self up is the pathway to equality versus looking at racial discrimination as a barrier. host: west virginia, republican. caller: yes. i had a comment. about the survey results. in america we have raised at

least two generations of young black people being told, taught repeatedly by their leaders, democrat politicians, by everyone and their civil rights structure that everything is bad, it is rotten, racism destroys all of their opportunities. of course that is what they think. they are being fed that on a daily basis by everyone they interact with. you look at school systems that are basically all-black like d.c. they have a truancy rate of something like 40% of the students missed two or more days a week. they are complaining they cannot get a good education? that it is not fair? that discrimination holds them back. you can bet if they missed two days a week if they show up they

are probably disrupting for the other students. host: have you know that? -- how do you know that? guest: i was going to say that almost like your last caller, we do not have any data in terms of asking black americans about their own individual paths. we do not have any data about attendance at school. certainly black adults do point to racism, racial discrimination is a significant barrier and they also have these critiques of institutions. these critiques are systemic ones pointing to society, pointing to racism as barriers to their pathway to equality. host: and one result you publish on the website, you show there is little hope among black adults that changes to racial

inequality are likely. here is the percentage of adults who say each of the following is little or not at all likely. 82% said little or not at all likely there will be reparations to descendants of people enslaved in the u.s.. 67%, it is not likely there will be changes to the prison system. 58% gap changes to policing to treat black people fairly. 44% doubted equality for black people in the united states. guest: across all of the different approaches to equality we talked about, those institutional changes and also reparations as a historical corrective for slavery, there is broad skepticism. even though black americans view reparations as a pathway, they view institutional changes we've been talking about as pathways, they did not think any of those changes are very likely in their lifetime. host: let's go to boston. michael, good morning.

caller: good morning. i hope you can hear me. fabulous. i'm going to give an opinion. i believe the black community has a major issue. i do not think they realize that from the 1960's until the present time there has been a continuing program of mass incarceration of the males, a portion of the females, coupled with importation -- with importation of aliens because they are subject to the jurisdiction of other nations. there has been a replacement program. we have been people that can speak like this young lady. host: we will go on to george. apologies for anyone offended by those comments. caller: longtime time listener, first time caller.

can you hear me? i just wanted to make a comment. i was in the military. i am a first generation immigrant. i see things through a different lens now. in the 1950's the u.s. congressional makeup was anglo. in just a few decades they want us to believe, is like the sports advocates as wide is the jersey so expensive, because you pay for it. the government has led us into this distraction, everything is a distraction. to the legislation and the state of this country. decades ago it is all anglos governing, the melting pot. now it is the old bait and switch. if this government has taken any lessons from the lich empire that subjugated south -- from the english empire that

subjugated south africa, now look at the congressional makeup which is in a few decades is all mixed. what i'm trying to say is be aware the bait and switch when it was the good old days and it was not good for everybody. that is what i'm trying to say. look at the obvious. host: you did break down the survey results by party affiliation as well. those that lean republican, democrat. guest: one of the differences that we saw were consistent differences in terms of party for black americans and actually being able to talk about black republicans is one of the neat features of this study. we are able to have a large enough sample to look at black republicans and compare them to black democrats. on the one hand we see black democrats are more likely to support these institutional critiques we have been talking about.