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Not all Americas are treated equal. Many African-Americans are currently being harassed, and sometimes even shot by the Police of all people. Non American-American citizens have a decreased chance of this happening due to police bias.

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70% of African Americans believe blacks are treated less fairly by the police and only 37% whites feel the same way.

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Not all Americans are treated equally, in the past year many of Americans have been victim of attacks based off their race, and even their religion this is best shown with Muslims as many of them have been accused of being a terrorist, just for being Muslim

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All Americans are not treated equally, especially people of different races. Many people discriminate people of color and religion, especially against Muslims. Ibtihaj Muhammad was a female Olympian who was the first one to wear a hijab. This had caused much of an uproar, a lot of people saying that "its not safe for a Muslim to be there, she might bomb the Olympics." But yet, not only Muslims are being discriminated and not treated equally. In this past year, there have been a lot of controversy over the lives of black people, with all of them being shot down, such as Alton

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All Americans are not treated equally because celebrities and richer people have a voice in certain things. Mean while the people with not as much money have no say in anything compared to them. Such as the Presidential Election some states have more votes than others.

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All americans are treated differently these days  because now a days they are seeing race,color,etc.

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All Americans are not equal from the wealthy to the poor,people get respect and most don't,not every american is equal.

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All Americans are equal.

I don't really agree with this statement because African Americans are  stereotype by people including cops just because of a skin color. Not all people are the same and a innocent guy got shot by a cop for following directions trying to get his wallet from out his pocket but since the cop was so threatened he decided to shoot the guy in the arm more then once and died from it.

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It was another traffic stop. Philando Castile was driving with his girlfriend, Lavish Reynolds, when they were pulled over at a traffic stop for a broken taillight, according to a video Reynolds posted on Facebook just after he was shot.

The officer "asked him for license and registration," she says. "He told him that it was in his wallet, but he had a pistol on him because he's licensed to carry. The officer said don't move. As he was putting his hands back up, the officer shot him in the arm four or five times."

The video shows a uniformed police officer holding a pistol on the couple from outside the car. The officer can be heard to say, "I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand out."

"Please don't tell me my boyfriend's gone," she says. "He don't deserve this, please. He works for St. Paul Public Schools. He's never been in jail, anything. He's not a gang member, anything."

According to reports since she posted the video, Mr. Castile died at the hospital.

This happens every day. The only difference in this case is that she took video, documented her story and posted it to Facebook.

Pay special attention to the fact that Castile was armed, but carried a permit, that he informed police he was armed before he reached for his wallet.

And now he is dead. Tell me something. If he had been white and armed, would he be dead?

The original video appears to have been pulled from Facebook, but this is the YouTube version of it.
UPDATE:

To give you some idea of this #FalconHeights video, here's what she says while in a cop car with her daughter. pic.twitter.com/p3OgI6poQl

- Michael Gold (@migold) July 7, 2016

(In case you can't deal with watching the video)

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Black Man Shot, Killed By Police After Following Orders (UPDATE)

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It was another traffic stop. Philando Castile was driving with his girlfriend, Lavish Reynolds, when they were pulled over at a traffic stop for a broken taillight, according to a video Reynolds posted on Facebook just after he was shot. The officer "asked him for license and registration," she says.

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Not all Americans are treated equally. In Virginia a waitress who is of Honduran and Mexican descent but is born in the United States  was left a mean note that said,“We only tip citizens,”

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Some Americans are not treated equally-
Summary from: http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/All-American-Boys/Jason-Reynolds/9781481463331
All American boys, a novel: In this Coretta Scott King Honor Award–winning novel, two teens—one black, one white—grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension.A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad’s resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad’s every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement?

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Not all americans are treated equal. Early this week, a 40 year old unarmed black man (with his hands up) was first tasered and then shot to death for no reason. This is also the reason why some football players like Kaepernick won't stand up during the National Anthem.

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all Americans are not equal. because other different country is about their skin color,religion,the type of job gender, and wealth.

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All Americans are not treated equally. They are treated differently because of the status of their wealth, skin color, religion, sexuality, or other factors.

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A Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officer was found not guilty of first-degree manslaughter on Wednesday for the shooting of an unarmed black man last year.

The verdict comes months after videos showed officer Betty Shelby shooting and killing Terence Crutcher, a black 40-year-old man. In the videos, Crutcher appeared to be cooperating with police, with his hands up as they escorted him toward his car. Yet suddenly, in moments that were largely obstructed in the videos released by the Tulsa Police Department, an officer shot and killed Crutcher.

According to the local newspaper Tulsa World, police were responding to a call on September 16 when they spotted Crutcher's stalled car. We don't know what happened when police arrived at the scene. Instead, the videos begin as Crutcher is guided by officers, one of whom is aiming her gun at him, slowly to his car. He has his hands up during this time.

Police say that Crutcher then failed to follow orders and reached into his car - leading officer Shelby to fire her weapon and officer Tyler Turnbough to use his Taser on Crutcher. By the looks of the videos, the Taser and gun were seemingly fired almost simultaneously.

The videos - one a police dashboard camera on the ground, another on a helicopter in the air - are obstructed by officers and Crutcher's car at the exact moment he was shot. That makes it hard to discern whether Crutcher had his hands up right as Shelby pulled the trigger.

But Crutcher had his hands up in the air until at least the seconds before he was shot, and he appears - although, again, it's hard to say for sure - to put his hands on the roof of his car right before the officer fired. His car's windows were also closed, based on an image from the video, making it impossible that he actually reached into the vehicle.

Police found no weapon on Crutcher or in his car.

Law enforcement reportedly found PCP in Crutcher's car. An attorney for Shelby told Tulsa World that she thought Crutcher was on drugs when she shot him. But that has no bearing on whether the shooting was legally justified - unless Crutcher acted in a dangerous or threatening manner before he was shot, which the video doesn't show.

Several of Shelby's colleagues who were on the scene testified during the trial, arguing that Crutcher was not complying with commands and reached into his pockets. Their testimony bolstered her argument that she feared for her life.

Crutcher's family condemned the jury's verdict, arguing that police had worked to cover up his "murder." "Let it be known that I believe in my heart that Betty Shelby got away with murder, and I don't know what was in the mind of that jury," Crutcher's father, Joseph, told reporters.

The shooting has inspired strong condemnations from the Black Lives Matter movement, with activist and New York Daily News columnist Shaun King previously calling for the police officers involved to be arrested. The death exemplifies yet another example of the racial disparities in police use of force - showing that even when a black man holds his hands up, he can still be at risk of getting shot and killed by the police, and the officers involved won't always be punished for the shooting.

Black people are much more likely to be killed by police than their white peers

Based on nationwide data collected by the Guardian, black Americans are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to be killed by police when accounting for population. In 2016, police killed black Americans at a rate of 6.66 per 1 million people, compared to 2.9 per 1 million for white Americans.

There have also been several high-profile police killings since 2014 involving black suspects. In Baltimore, Freddie Gray died from injuries sustained during a car ride while in police custody. In North Charleston, South Carolina, Michael Slager shot and killed Walter Scott, who was fleeing and unarmed at the time. In Ferguson, Darren Wilson killed unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown. In New York City, NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo killed Eric Garner by putting the unarmed 43-year-old black man in a chokehold.

One possible explanation for the racial disparities: Police tend to patrol high-crime neighborhoods, which are disproportionately black. That means they're going to be generally more likely to initiate a policing action, from traffic stops to more serious arrests, against a black person who lives in these areas. And all of these policing actions carry a chance, however small, to escalate into a violent confrontation.

That's not to say that higher crime rates in black communities explain the entire racial disparity in police shootings. A 2015 study by researcher Cody Ross found, "There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates), meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates." That suggests something else - such as, potentially, racial bias - is going on.

One reason to believe racial bias is a factor: Studies show that officers are quicker to shoot black suspects in video game simulations. Josh Correll, a University of Colorado Boulder psychology professor who conducted the research, said it's possible the bias could lead to even more skewed outcomes in the field. "In the very situation in which [officers] most need their training," he said, "we have some reason to believe that their training will be most likely to fail them."

Part of the solution to potential bias is better trainingthat helps cops acknowledge and deal with their potential prejudices. But critics also argue that more accountability could help deter future brutality or excessive use of force, since it would make it clear that there are consequences to the misuse and abuse of police powers. Yet right now, lax legal standards make it difficult to legally punish individual police officers for use of force, even when it might be excessive.

Police only have to reasonably perceive a threat to justify shooting

Legally, what most matters in police shootings is whether police officers reasonably believed that their lives were in immediate danger, not whether the shooting victim actually posed a threat.

In the 1980s, a pair of Supreme Court decisions - Tennessee v. Garner and Graham v. Connor - set up a framework for determining when deadly force by cops is reasonable.

Constitutionally, "police officers are allowed to shoot under two circumstances," David Klinger, a University of Missouri St. Louis professor who studies use of force, previously told Dara Lind for Vox. The first circumstance is "to protect their life or the life of another innocent party" - what departments call the "defense-of-life" standard. The second circumstance is to prevent a suspect from escaping, but only if the officer has probable cause to think the suspect poses a dangerous threat to others.

The logic behind the second circumstance, Klinger said, comes from a Supreme Court decision called Tennessee v. Garner. That case involved a pair of police officers who shot a 15-year-old boy as he fled from a burglary. (He'd stolen $10 and a purse from a house.) The court ruled that cops couldn't shoot every felon who tried to escape. But, as Klinger said, "they basically say that the job of a cop is to protect people from violence, and if you've got a violent person who's fleeing, you can shoot them to stop their flight."

The key to both of the legal standards - defense of life and fleeing a violent felony - is that it doesn't matter whether there is an actual threat when force is used. Instead, what matters is the officer's "objectively reasonable" belief that there is a threat.

That standard comes from the other Supreme Court case that guides use-of-force decisions: Graham v. Connor. This was a civil lawsuit brought by a man who'd survived his encounter with police officers, but who'd been treated roughly, had his face shoved into the hood of a car, and broken his foot - all while he was suffering a diabetic attack.

The court didn't rule on whether the officers' treatment of him had been justified, but it did say that the officers couldn't justify their conduct just based on whether their intentions were good. They had to demonstrate that their actions were "objectively reasonable," given the circumstances and compared to what other police officers might do.

What's "objectively reasonable" changes as the circumstances change. "One can't just say, 'Because I could use deadly force 10 seconds ago, that means I can use deadly force again now,'" Walter Katz, a California attorney who specializes in oversight of law enforcement agencies, previously said.

In general, officers are given lot of legal latitude to use force without fear of punishment. The intention behind these legal standards is to give police officers leeway to make split-second decisions to protect themselves and bystanders. And although critics argue that these legal standards give law enforcement a license to kill innocent or unarmed people, police officers say they are essential to their safety.

For some critics, the question isn't what's legally justified but rather what's preventable. "We have to get beyond what is legal and start focusing on what is preventable. Most are preventable," Ronald Davis, a former police chief who previously headed the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, told the Washington Post. Police "need to stop chasing down suspects, hopping fences, and landing on top of someone with a gun," he added. "When they do that, they have no choice but to shoot."

Police are rarely prosecuted for shootings

Police are very rarely prosecuted for shootings - and not just because the law allows them wide latitude to use force on the job. Sometimes the investigations fall onto the same police department the officer is from, which creates major conflicts of interest. Other times the only available evidence comes from eyewitnesses, who may not be as trustworthy in the public eye as a police officer.

"There is a tendency to believe an officer over a civilian, in terms of credibility," David Rudovsky, a civil rights lawyer who co-wrote Prosecuting Misconduct: Law and Litigation, previously told Amanda Taub for Vox. "And when an officer is on trial, reasonable doubt has a lot of bite. A prosecutor needs a very strong case before a jury will say that somebody who we generally trust to protect us has so seriously crossed the line as to be subject to a conviction."

If police are charged, they're very rarely convicted. The National Police Misconduct Reporting Project analyzed 3,238 criminal cases against police officers from April 2009 through December 2010. It found that only 33 percent were convicted, and only 36 percent of officers who were convicted ended up serving prison sentences. Both of those are about half the rate at which members of the public are convicted or incarcerated.

The statistics suggest that it would have been a truly rare situation if the officer who shot and killed Crutcher was convicted of a crime.

Correction: Due a typo, the story originally suggested that the prosecution made an argument in favor of Shelby. The prosecution argued against Shelby.

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Oklahoma police officer who shot and killed Terence Crutcher found not guilty of manslaughter

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A Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officer was found not guilty of first-degree manslaughter on Wednesday for the shooting of an unarmed black man last year. The verdict comes months after videos showed officer Betty Shelby shooting and killing Terence Crutcher, a black 40-year-old man.

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All Americans Are Equal ~

This statement it not true for numerous reasons. For example, there were one too many shootings this year based on discrimination and color. Additionally, some people in America express hatred towards others with a different religion or race.

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I strongly disagree that rich people have a more powerful voice then the the average Americans. This is because I have seen videos that show rich people against poor people in court and then the poor people are all treated the same as the rich people. Even though they might actually lose some cases it is not because the judges don't treat them right, its mostly becasue of the fact that they don't have a strong support.

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I mildly disagree that all Americans have the same freedom. Freedom is not only having the ability to do what you choose but to think and say what you specifically believe in. I am a Christian although in recent years I have always been corrected when I say, "Merry Christmas." I completely respect that other people celebrate different holidays so I acknowledge that as well. However, that is no excuse for me not to be allowed to simply wish someone some holiday cheer. For instance, one of my friends is Jewish (Emily Heller) therefore I wish her a Happy Hanukkah instead of Christmas. I do not intend to offend anyone but I believe that anyone deserves the right to mention there religion. I am not forcing people to convert but simply wishing them a, "Merry Christmas" because it is significant to my religion. G.K  Chesterton wrote, “Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.” This quote accurately explains that yes we may have freedom of religion but not any liberty to truly mention it. This is also supported by First Amendment of The United States Constitution.

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Some Americans could be equal, but not all Americans are equal. Some get treated equally like others.

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I mildly disagree that all Americans are treated equally. I think this because people are still judged by their beliefs ,looks ,and their wealth

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All Americans are not treated equally.

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Has there ever been a mass school shooting? I'm seriously asking.

Because a week removed from the horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida, there are many who now say it was a " false flag" operation promulgated by " crisis actors." "False flag" means a phony event orchestrated by government, usually to promote a political agenda. "Crisis actor" means professionals are merely pretending their classmates were murdered in cold blood last week in an elaborate scheme to increase gun control.

This is as offensive as it sounds. Could you imagine losing your child and having to read or hear about this garbage? Or worse, be confronted with it? Hopefully there's a special place in hell for those who question the credibility of the survivors and victims' families in the wake of an event as horrific as what happened last week.

Yet, not only has this conspiracy theory caught fire on social media, even the president's son, Donald Trump, Jr., has shown sympathy for it.
RELATED: Bernie Sanders botches his gun facts in a conversation about the Florida school shooting
So, again, I have a question for all the people who question the validity of the shooting: Has there ever been a mass school shooting in modern U.S. history?

Because every single time there's a school shooting you say exactly the same thing. Going all the way back to Columbine High (1999). Virginia Tech (2007). Oikos University (2012). Sandy Hook Elementary (2012). Santa Monica College (2013). University of California-Santa Barbara (2014). Marysville Pilchuck High School (2014). Umpqua Community College (2015).

And it's not just schools, because you apparently believe the same thing about every other shooting.

"I'm not a crisis actor."

Florida school shooting survivor David Hogg denies conspiracy theories and online smear campaigns saying he and his classmates are "actors" working for a globalist gun grab who travel around the country to the sites of shootings https://t.co/j8oaiL0PZq pic.twitter.com/Hf42qpzSfU

- CNN International (@cnni) February 21, 2018

Ask yourself another question: Which is more likely?

1. That most - or all - of these tragedies occurred due to mentally diseased people taking innocent lives.

2. That most and perhaps all of these tragedies were either staged or orchestrated by the government?

If you honestly believe the second answer, you have a lot more faith in government efficiency than I do.

I'm not saying that false flag operations haven't happened. They have. The government often lies to us and others to get what they want policy-wise. Nor am I trying to push for more gun control. I'm a Second Amendment supporter and doubt any legislation could stop mass shootings.

But it does not stand to reason that every single mass school shooting from twenty years ago and until the end of time is a secret government plot.

You'd have to be crazy to think so.

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Has there ever been a mass school shooting?

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Has there ever been a mass school shooting? I'm seriously asking. Because a week removed from the horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida, there are many who now say it was a " false flag" operation promulgated by " crisis actors." "False flag" means a phony event orchestrated by government, usually to promote a political agenda.

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Are all Americans treated equally.
I don think this is true. There are less chances to succeed in life an example is college, if you have the money you could do more things.

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Americans are not treated equally, people usually goes toward more wealthy and powerful people and not really care about poor people, also, even though racial discrimination is not as open, many people discriminate other for being different especially if they are more powerful(usually more wealthy) and the people that are different are less powerful, they will be discrimination. One example is Donald Trump, he push discrimination to its limit blaming mexicans and muslims for all the bad things,

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All Americans are not treated equally. For example, Muslims are treated unequally because of ISIS. This is not true! Just because you are Muslim does not mean you are a terrorist, but some people disagree with this statement. Because of this, Muslim people may not be treated equally compared to other Americans, but they should be treated equally because an american is someone who is part of the United States and they are part of the U.S as well. Everyone should be treated equally no matter what heritage they originated from, but unfortunately people do not believe in this.

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Ahmed Mohamed. Welcome to America. We try our hardest to keep this country safe. You are just going to have to understand that you pose a threat to us.

Muslims and people from the Middle East are the greatest threat to our way of life. Your religion preaches hate and says death to all non-believers.

Anyway, you're here in America where we have a white Santa Claus and, you know, Jesus is white, too. America just has no room for your traditions or your hateful religion.

So if you are going to call America your home, let's make some things clear:

One, we have normal names. My name is Erik; your name isn't normal. Ahmed, come on man, sounds like someone involved with 9/11.

Second, in America, our country was founded by Christians for Christians. All of our founding fathers were Christians who went to church on Sunday mornings.

All right, let's think about what I've previously said. Odds are, at least a few of you believe or agree with the paragraph I was jokingly writing. I want to make sure that people know that I do not believe any of that. Others, though ...

Whether it be Facebook or "news channels," American's view on Muslims is very defined. We simply don't seem to like them.

Sept. 11 changed our country, our world and, of course, many people's lives. Soldiers went off to war. People lived in fear. Many lost loved ones.

The saddest thing that happened on 9/11 though, in my opinion, is an entire race/religion/region of the world was labeled "terrorists."

Actually, that isn't solely my opinion; it is a large segment of the population's opinion. Muslims aren't terrorist. Middle Eastern people aren't terrorist.

Also, let's think about our war of terror - I mean war on terror. The Iraq War killed somewhere around 500,000 people.

That is a lot of people, especially when you realize that the Iraq War had nothing to do with 9/11. Saudi Arabia is where the pilots who carried out the attacks on 9/11 came from, not Iraq.

Muslims are the target of a lot of racism in this country, and what have they done to deserve that?

Well, with that being said we must now be fair - Muslims caused 9/11.

However, Christians caused: a suicide attack on an IRS building, a Holocaust Memorial shooting (twice) and bombed the 1997 Olympics in Atlanta, among many other incidents.

Christianity must be a religion preaching hate!

I really hope that offended some people. Christianity, at its core, is not preaching hate. At least I would hope since I am a Christian.

We must realize Islam is not a religion of hate. In fact, Islam is no more a religion of hate than Christianity. Rather, it is what people chose to do with a religion.

The problem is we see something in the news or hear a story that is anecdotal at best, and we choose to believe it.

The problem is that so few of us Americans who state that Muslims are dangerous have no idea what Muslims are taught.

If one were to actually read some of the Qur'an, we would probably see a lot of similarities to Christianity. For example:

"Lo! Those who believe (in that which is revealed unto thee, Muhammad), and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabaeans - whoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right - surely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve."

This is what the Qur'an has to say about judgment day for all religions.

This isn't preaching that Christians will go to Hell. Rather it is saying whoever believes in a God must be rewarded and have no fear.

So let's talk about more "religious figures" like our founding fathers and of course the pilgrims. The founding fathers were Christians on the outside, but a lot of them were actually not Christian at their core.

George Washington was at his very core, a Deist. He rejected the idea of communion and would often leave services before communion was served. His belief, deism, was that there was a God, but he didn't act in human affairs.

John Adams, our second president, rejected the trinity and the divinity of Jesus. As president, Adams signed the famous Treaty of Tripoli stating that The United States was not founded as a Christian nation.

We cannot continue our old ways in this country. Time and time again, we have been shown they are embedded in racism and bigotry.

This country isn't a Christian nation. It isn't a country for just white people. This country was founded on the idea that all people are equal.

While the idea of "all people" has changed over time in this country, we must know now what that means.

We can no longer continue the idea that different cultures are wrong. "Weird sounding" names do not mean one's a terrorist. Skin, sexuality and someone's religious background should have no bearing on how you treat them.

It should have no bearing on whether you deny them rights or they deserved to get arrested.

Ahmed, you were done a great disservice.

We know white privilege is evident. I don't need to worry about being labeled a "terrorist" on a day-to-day basis, but Muslims do.

Americans need to hold up our end of the bargain. We need to make America the land where all people are created equally and thus treated equally.

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America: Where Everybody is Sort of Treated Equally - The Spectrum

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Ahmed Mohamed. Welcome to America. We try our hardest to keep this country safe. You are just going to have to understand that you pose a threat to us. Muslims and people from the Middle East are the greatest threat to our way of life. Your religion preaches hate and says death to all non-believers.

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I disagree that all Americans are treated equally because people are being treated differently for their race, religion, gender, sexuality, wealth, and\or beliefs. For example, innocent people are being shot at randomly because other people from the same race or religion have done something horrible.

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Do rich people have more say in democracy?

If you are someone who is rich, you are able to pay candidates and others for "favors." This is illegal and makes the government corrupt.

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All Americans are not treated equally because people treat other people differently because of their wealth,race,religion,social status, gender,and sometimes jobs. Their are people out their making fun of people because of their race and their are many groups in the world that judge people because of their race,gender, and sexuality.Their are many people that are stereotyping people just because a person of their color maybe killed someone or did something like bombings or kidnappings.

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People are not being treating equally, if it's by race, religion, wealth, beliefs, or discrimination that we make, etc. For example, there have been more unfair encounters towards Black men and women rather than White men and women.

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Videos of these and similar incidents are appearing online with increasing frequency, underscoring what many African-Americans say is unfair treatment they face by police.

Terms such as "driving while black" and "walking while black" have been coined, with studies showing that blacks are pulled over, questioned or arrested by police at a disproportionately higher rate than white Americans.

A new poll by CNN and the Kaiser Family Foundation gets to the heart of how prevalent these types of experiences are: 1 out of 5 African-Americans said they were treated unfairly because of their race in dealings with the police in the past 30 days. By comparison, only 3% of whites said they'd been treated unfairly, according to the poll.

That's 19% of African Americans nationwide.

"That is one of the single most disturbing statistics I think I've heard," said Jerald Podair, a professor of history and American studies at Lawrence University in Wisconsin.

Podair said the finding suggests many encounters between African-Americans and police have "the potential to end very badly -- with either an unfair arrest or a violent assault or even death."

He pointed to the deaths of Freddie Gray and Eric Garner in Baltimore and New York while in police custody. And then there's Walter Scott, who was shot and killed by an officer in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Making the 1-in-5 statistic even more complicated, Podair said, is the fact that there are more African-American police officers than ever before. "You would think that relations would be getting better," he said.

"There is some sort of huge perceptual chasm between the police and the policed in most American cities," Podair said.

"When you get that kind of perceptual gulf -- when you're looking at the same incident and you're interpreting it in different ways -- that's a recipe for total division and complete disunity in our society."

Andra Gillespie, a political scientist and associate professor at Emory University, agreed. She said the poll result "reflects the fact that we're in a moment right now where police and minority communities, particularly African-American communities, are tense."

"As a society, we're going to have to figure out a way to bridge the divide and have a dialogue between these two groups, so that people can get along and so that, honestly, our institutions work."

Black communities understand the vital role police play in society, Gillespie said, but something has to be done to address the long-standing discrimination blacks have faced.

"What people want is they want to think the police are looking at them primarily as people to protect and not as enemies to corral," Gillespie said.

Gillespie also said Americans need to understand that the grievances expressed within the black community are real. The events over the past two years, from Ferguson to Baltimore to North Charleston, have begun to change that dialogue, she said, with an increasingly number of whites acknowledging that blacks are treated unfairly by the criminal justice system.

In the CNN/KFF poll, 56% of Americans -- including 48% of whites -- said they think the system favors whites over blacks. That number is much higher -- 86% -- among African-Americans. The poll showed similar percentages when participants were asked whether the criminal justice system favors whites over Hispanics.

The poll also offered insight into incidents in which unarmed blacks have been hurt or killed by police -- and the protests that have followed.

A large majority of blacks -- 70% -- said the race of the officer involved would play a major role in whether the officer is charged with a crime. Only 35% of whites said the officer's race would play a major role.

A similar disparity was found when it came to the race of the prosecutor handling the case: 58% of blacks said it would play a major role compared with 25% of whites.

However, large majorities of blacks (72%) and whites (80%) said having a dashcam, body camera or cell phone video of the incident would play a major role in whether the officer was charged.

When asked what fueled protests following such incidents, blacks (84%) and whites (67%) both pointed to anger over the treatment of blacks by police as the leading major reason.

Somewhat smaller percentages said other factors were major reasons:

-- A desire for blacks to feel like they are being treated fairly (81% of blacks and 63% of whites)

-- The way government officials handled those incidents (73% of blacks and 59% of whites)

-- Poverty and lack of opportunities in some neighborhoods (61% of blacks and 51% of whites)

A majority of blacks (89%) and whites (66%) also agreed that the federal government has a responsibility to make sure police and courts treat whites and minorities equally.

Overall, 49% of Americans said racism is a big problem in our society today, up from 28% in 2011 and somewhat higher than the 41% in a 1995 survey conducted on the heels of the Million Man March.

The percentage is significantly higher among African-Americans: 66% said racism is a big problem today, up from 50% four years ago but about the same compared with 68% in 1995.

But the most glaring result from the poll, experts said, was the 1 in 5 blacks who said they were treated unfairly by police in the last month.

Graham Holt is a criminal defense attorney in Greensboro, North Carolina. He said the results don't surprise him.

"I'm in the courthouse and criminal courtrooms Monday through Friday. Every single day, there are thousands of black people in those courtrooms and a handful of white people," he said.

"One reason the system allows this to happen to black people is because people don't listen when a black person complains about the police."

"This is the story, man. I can't think of anything more important in America right now," he said. "It's genocide. They've already taken out an entire generation of black men [through incarceration]."

Holt represented Rufus Scales, whose encounters with police were featured in a recent New York Times report on "driving while black."

Scales and his younger brother Devin were pulled over by police in May 2013 for minor infractions; Scales said he was Tased by an officer. The following summer, the brothers were stopped and questioned as they walked to the store to buy groceries for their grandmother.

"Get out of the street, you morons," the officer said, according to Scales.

Scales soon was face first on the ground getting handcuffed. Unlike their first encounter, this time his brother had a video camera. Devin recorded the incident on his cell phone. It provided proof that what might seem like an outlandish tale of a black man being arrested for walking down the street really happened.

"He asked for my ID; I gave him my ID," Rufus Scales said in the video while on the ground, the officer next to him.

"I don't know where you live. All I know is you're out in the middle of the road," the officer responded. "You cannot sit here and run your mouth and start cursing out in the middle of the street."

The two brothers were arrested on charges of impeding traffic. Rufus Scales also was charged with resisting arrest and public intoxication. He admitted cursing but denies being intoxicated.

The charges were eventually dropped after the brothers filed a complaint -- the video serving as a smoking gun. The city apologized.

Holt said the incident, unfortunately, is all too common for African-Americans.

"I see black people getting pulled over and searched all the time," he said. "You hardly ever see the cops searching white people.

"If that happened to two white young men, heads would roll."

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poll: 1 in 5 blacks have 'unfair' dealings with police - cnn

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Poll: 1 in 5 blacks have 'unfair' dealings with police - CNN

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Videos of these and similar incidents are appearing online with increasing frequency, underscoring what many African-Americans say is unfair treatment they face by police. Terms such as "driving while black" and "walking while black" have been coined, with studies showing that blacks are pulled over, questioned or arrested by police at a disproportionately higher rate than white Americans.

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(Are all Americans Treated Equal?)
In all 50 states, gay rights have been approved and show that all Americans are equal. But some people do not have the same opportunities